STORY: Belarus celebrates 79th anniversary of Victory Day
SHOOTING TIME: May 9, 2024
DATELINE: May 10, 2024
LENGTH: 0:01:30
LOCATION: Minsk
CATEGORY: SOCIETY/POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko laying flowers at the Victory Monument
2. various of celebrations

STORYLINE:

Belarus hosted a series of events on Thursday to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet Union in the Eastern Front of World War II.
   
Representatives from all walks of life gathered at Victory Square in Minsk and laid flowers at the Victory Monument.
   
Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko attended the rally after returning from Moscow, where he had watched the military parade on Red Square that morning.
   
Lukashenko said that the Belarusian people will always remember the names of the martyrs and the glory of the defenders and liberators.
   
Lukashenko sent congratulatory messages to the leaders and people of some former Soviet republics. He called on the Ukrainian people to commemorate a glorious chapter of their common history and resist attempts to rewrite the results of the Great Patriotic War.
   
Commemorative activities were also held in other Belarusian cities.
   
Nazi Germany officially signed an act of unconditional surrender in a suburb of Berlin on the night of May 8, 1945 Berlin Time. The signing occurred in the early hours of May 9 in Moscow, so The Soviet Union declared the day to be "Victory Day in the Great Patriotic War."

Today, Victory Day is one of the most important holidays in Russia and Belarus. 

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Minsk.
(XHTV)