Medvedev to award military orders on Russian Army Day eve.

MOSCOW, February 19 (Itar-Tass) -- On the eve of the Russian Army Day
marked on February 23 President Dmitry Medvedev will on Friday award
military orders and medals to veterans of the Second World War and
hostilities in Afghanistan, Chechnya and South Ossetia.

The Kremlin said two dozen WWII veterans were invited to receive the
decorations they were awarded yet in the times of the war or right after
it.
The president will also award the top military title of the Hero of
Russia to Ilias Daudi for valor and heroism displayed in the Soviet war in
Afghanistan.
Over thirty servicemen will be awarded various orders and medals for
the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya and for the five-day war against
Georgia in South Ossetia in 2008.
The ceremony will take place in Georgiyevsky (St. George the Victor)
hall in the Kremlin.


.Politicians split on glorifying Stalin's WW2 role.

MOSCOW, February 19 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's leading politicians are
split regarding the idea to glorify the role of Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin in the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.
"We should say the people won the war, not Stalin," State Duma speaker
and ruling United Russia Party head Boris Gryzlov said on Thursday
commenting on plans to install stands in Moscow on the eve of the 65th
VE-Day anniversary that will describe Stalin's role in the war.
"We shall glorify the people, the veterans who won the war," Gryzlov
said, adding "no posters can correct the questionable role of Stalin in
the life of our country."
LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said the idea was a provocation. "If
Stalin's portraits appear in Moscow streets, nobody will come to us to
celebrate the 65th VE-Day anniversary and many Muscovites would not
celebrate it either," he said.
"It will be a disgrace for us if Stalin's portraits appear anywhere.
We lost the first months of the war because of him, and won the war not
because of him. He organized nothing and only impeded everything. Stalin
had all military commanders executed. New commanders grew up in trenches
and together with Russian soldiers defeated the Nazi army. Stalin has
nothing to do with it. He is the organizer of the defeat of our country,"
Zhirinovsky said.
However Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said the Soviet Union would
not have won the war without Stalin.
"All front commanders highly assessed the military talent of Stalin
and could not imagine the victory without the Supreme Commander-in Chief.
We have to honestly tell the country about that," he said.
The idea to place Stalin's posters in the capital was proposed by the
advertising committee of Moscow.

.Russia commemorates sole U.S. soldier in Red army.

ST. PETERSBURG, February 19 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia opened an exhibition
in St. Petersburg on Thursday that commemorates the only U.S. soldier who
fought in the Red army against the Nazis in World War Two.
The exhibition called Hero of Two Nations is devoted to Joseph Byerly
who took part in the Normandy landings and later rode into Berlin with a
Soviet tank battalion.
In 1944 Sergeant Byerly was taken prisoner by the Nazis and spent
seven months in concentration camps. He succeeded to flee and met a Soviet
tank battalion. He was wounded after a month of fighting and hospitalized.
WW2 victor and Marshal Georgy Zhukov helped Byerly get to the U.S. embassy
in Moscow and back home.
On display are 260 exhibits from Byerly's collection. In 1994, on the
50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Front in Europe, Byerly was
decorated with commemorative medals handed to him in the White House by
the then U.S. and Russian Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin.
Joseph Byerly's son, the U.S. ambassador to Russia John Byerly
attended the exhibition's opening ceremony. He said his father was always
grateful to Soviet soldiers who saved his life. Even in Cold War times we
had a different idea of Russia in our home, he said.
-0-nec


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