VICTORY FLAG REACHES UKRAINIAN CAPITAL

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KIEV, October 26 (RIA Novosti) - Kiev has got the Victory Banner for Ukrainian galas-the 60th anniversary of Ukraine's WWII liberation from nazis. That is the red flag which Soviet soldiers put out above the Reichstag, April 30, 1945.

The sacred relic arrived from Moscow by special flight. Three branches of the Ukrainian Armed Services arranged a guard of honour to meet it at the Borispol international airport. Colonel Igor Gromov, Moscow's deputy commandant, ceremonially passed the banner to Lieutenant-General Alexander Matveichuk, Kiev commandant.

The memorable flag will appear on display tomorrow at the Ukrainian Museum of Great Patriotic War History, a memorial complex in Kiev. The Victory Banner will be carried at a military parade in Kreschatic, the city's main thoroughfare, the next day, October 28. Russian delegates will receive it at night to get the relic back to Moscow's Central Museum of the Russian Armed Forces.

The Victory Banner history started April 7, 1945, during the Battle of Berlin, when the Military Council of the 3rd Attack Army determined to make special flags for Soviet soldiers to hoist them above the Reichstag once it was taken. Each of the nine divisions that were storming the city's heart received a flag.

Sergeants Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton Kantaria of the 1st Infantry Battalion, 756th Regiment, and Lieutenant Alexei Beresta, ethnic Ukrainian, hoisted a first flag on the Reichstag dome, 21.50, April 30.

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