Today marks 80 years since Nazi invasion of Soviet Union

Tuesday marks the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. At dawn on June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany, in violation of Non-Aggression Pact, invaded the Soviet Union. During the war, more than 1.2 million Kazakh soldiers were enlisted to go to the front, and half of them did not return.

In honour of the anniversary, the Foreign Ministers of the CIS member states,including Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi paid tribute to the heroism of the World War Two participants. They recited excerpts from poems about that devastating war in their native languages.

Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova

Editing by Galiya Khassenkhanova