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PUTIN WILL ATTEND CELEBRATION IN NORMANDY

MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend Sunday's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France (Operation Overlord).

According to a source in the Kremlin, French president Jacques Chirac and his spouse will meet the Russian president in Caen, Normandy, about 1.00 p.m. local time. Then all heads of state, invited to the celebration, will be in for a common photograph and have breakfast.

The ceremony will begin at 3.30 p.m.

During his visit to France Vladimir Putin will have a talk with president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and in the evening he will have a meeting with President Chirac and his wife.

The Russian president will also attend the ceremonial handing of a Russian passport to Russian emigrant Andrei Shmeman and will also meet with Russian fighters of French Resistance Gleb Plaksin and Oleg Ozerov.

Andrei Shmeman is the only first-wave Russian emigrant (i.e. he emigrated during the Civil War in Russia in 1918 - Ed.) who has not adopted French citizenship and retained a refugee status, although citizenship suggested a great deal of advantage, because he said "he could not betray Russia."

Gleb Plaksin was born in Paris in 1925. His father was a tsarist military officer, and his mother, a paramedic, was the only woman to be awarded three St. George Crosses (the highest tsarist army enlisted ranks' award for distinguished conduct on the battlefield and for major injuries - Ed.). Plaksin left high school in France and graduated from the Paris Conservatory. He speaks six European languages.

As the Nazis occupied France, Plaksin went to the Resistance. From mid-1943 until Operation Overlord he fought in an insurgent team in Normandy. After the invasion he was ranked Private, company D, 83rd Division, U.S. Army.

After the WWII he worked for the Soviet repatriation mission, and in 1955 he adopted Soviet citizenship. Plaksin was decorated with 23 Soviet, Russian, American, and French awards.

Oleg Ozerov was born in 1922 in the town of Spassk, Ryazan Region, USSR. In June 1940 he was conscripted to the Red (Soviet) Army. As a result of a contusion he was captured by Nazis in 1941 and sent from one concentration camp to another until French communists helped him escape from a camp near Bordeaux. Then he fought in Brittany as part of the Dombrowsky 13th International Brigade. In late 1945 Ozerov returned to the USSR and is now head of the association of French Resistance veterans.

Both Plaksin and Ozerov live in Russia.

The Kremlin emphasized that the Russian president was going to France to pay Russia's tribute to the Allied contribution to the victory in WWII.

"Next year Russia will celebrate the 60th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 [the part of WWII since the Nazi invasion of the USSR until the Nazi capitulation - Ed.], there will be a lot of celebration events dedicated to the Soviet Union's decisive part in WWII and victory over the Nazis," the Kremlin source said.

Russia would like to see that the USSR's part in the victory is not forgotten, and it would be good if France took an active part in this.

Paris's Arc de Triomphe has been hosting an exhibition devoted to common victory over the Nazis since June 1. The show incorporates some exhibits from the Museum of the Russian Armed Forces. Every visitor gets a souvenir - a WWII military knapsack with a 200-g bottle of Pobeda ("Victory" - Ed.) vodka, an aluminum mug, and a set of WWII Poster postcards with the flags of anti-Hitler coalition countries (the U.S., the UK, and the USSR). Another unique souvenir will be a copy of a genuine "frontline triangle" letter (due to shortage of envelopes in the Soviet Army, the letters soldiers and officers wrote home were folded into a triangle in a special manner as to reveal only the address and not let the letter unfold - Ed.), in which he writes he is happynow that the Second Front has been opened.

On June 6 a similar exhibition will be launched in the Military Memorial of Caen. Among other exhibits, there will be a sniper rifle, a white DPM snow robe, and a part of a wall from a Stalingrad house.

After the Overlord celebration President Putin will leave for Mexico.