Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed an audience at a lunch in Moscow on May 9

"To the generation of winners, to the great victory, to peace and prosperity, to our good friends," Putin said to a gathered group of dignitaries.

Russia on Thursday wrapped itself in patriotic pageantry for Victory Day, a celebration of its defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II that Putin has turned into a pillar of his nearly quarter-century in power.

Even though few veterans of what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War are still alive 79 years after Berlin fell to the Red Army, the victory over Nazi Germany remains the most important and widely revered symbol of the country’s prowess and a key element of national identity.

Thursday's festivities across Russia were led by Putin who this week began his fifth term in office.

The Soviet Union lost about 27 million people in the war, an estimate that many historians consider conservative, scarring virtually every family.

Nazi troops overran much of the western Soviet Union when they invaded in June 1941, before being driven back all the way to Berlin, where the USSR's hammer and sickle flag was raised above the ruined capital.