Russia marks 75th anniversary of WWII turning point

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Russia celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory in the Battle of Stalingrad on Friday with a series of events in the southern city of Volgograd.

The celebration opened with a military parade on the Square of Fallen Fighters in Volgograd, and features a parade with 75 tanks, one for each year since the victory, as well as some 1,500 military personnel and 50 aircraft.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Volgograd on Friday to attend commemorations. He signed an executive order to celebrate the anniversary last February, and many commemorative events have been held since then.

The battle that took place between July 17, 1942, and Feb. 2, 1943, is considered by many historians to have been the turning point in World War II in Europe. The three-phase battle began with a German offensive, followed by fighting among the rubble of Stalingrad - which is now known as Volgograd - and ended with a Soviet counter-offensive leading to a decisive victory.

Servicemen during a practice of a military parade to mark the 75th anniversary of victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in Volgograd, Russia, Jan. 26, 2018 /VCG Photo

The unprecedented defeat of the Nazis near Stalingrad was a crushing blow to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, and constituted the beginning of the collapse of the Axis troops on the eastern front.

The Soviet Red Army then liberated most of Ukraine and virtually all of Russia and eastern Belarus during 1943, followed by its final capture of the German capital Berlin on May 2, 1945.

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