May 9th marks the anniversary of the official German surrender to the Soviet Union in 1945. Though the German surrender to the Western Allies on May 7th is traditionally celebrated as V-E (Victory in Europe) Day in much of Europe and North America, the war was officially ended via the signing of a separate instrument of surrender on May 9th. The Soviet Union took the heaviest civilian and battlefield losses of any European nation involved in the Second World War, and was exceeded only by China in the number of total war dead in the Second World War, or the Great Patriotic War as it is known in former Soviet countries.

In modern Russia, Victory Day is traditionally celebrated with a major public holiday and a massive military parade, as it was in Soviet times. It is, without a doubt, one of the most important holidays of the entire year in Russia and many other former nations of the former Soviet Union.

Over the course of the Second World War, more people died in the Siege of Leningrad than the combined total war dead of the United States and the United Kingdom. Regardless of one's opinions on the Soviet Union or the states that have come after its dissolution, this fact should always be recognised.