This year's Victory Day Parade in Moscow has been marked by the very first march of women serving with the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces Military Academy. The servicewomen paraded on Red Square in uniform, holding a flag.

The parade showcased more than 13,000 military personnel, 132 pieces of military equipment and 74 aircraft of all types and branches of the Russian armed forces, as well as the parade units of other uniformed services.

Hundreds of commemorative events are to be held in Russia and around the globe to mark the anniversary of the official capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet forces in 1945.

The Great Patriotic War, which constituted part of the Second World War of 1939-1945, began at dawn on June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany, violating the Soviet-German non-aggression treaty of 1939, attacked the USSR.