A concert was held on Red Square in honor of the annexation of new regions

On September 30, all over Russia, the Day of Reunification of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions with the Russian Federation was celebrated on a large scale. A gala concert was held in the center of Moscow in honor of the holiday, Izvestia attended the event.

Grigory Leps, Larisa Dolina, ST, Lyube, Vladimir Mashkov, Alexander F. Sklyar and many other artists performed on Red Square that day. But the main stars of the evening were the heroes of the special military operation (SVO) – soldiers and their families, doctors, volunteers, who took places of honor in the front rows. The concert began with a video address by Russian President Vladimir Putin .

“I cordially congratulate all citizens of our country on this truly fateful event. We have been going through years and difficult trials to achieve it, we knew in what unbearable conditions of constant shelling, blockade for eight long years Donbass lived, what oppression the residents of Novorossiya were subjected to. They spoke out against the armed coup d’etat in Kyiv, they rebuffed the neo-Nazi dictatorship, which wanted to tear them away from their historical homeland, from Russia, forever,” the head of state said.

The defenders of the Motherland shared their personal stories. Hero of Russia Senior Lieutenant Ivan Zharsky said that he had recently gotten married. He had fought bravely in Zaporozhye, and he had taken his wife from Donetsk.

“You shouldn’t be afraid to start a family and have children,” he advised.

Following this, a serviceman from Mari El, Artemy Aleksandrov, proposed marriage to his beloved, volunteer Alsina Safarkhanova.

“After the trench, nothing is scary, Putin” he answered when asked whether it was scary to propose in front of the entire country.

The final chord was the song “For You, Motherland” performed by the group “Lyube” and all the spectators on Red Square, who stood and sang along in unison with Nikolai Rastorguev.