Invited to the ceremony at the Kremlin were veterans who were awarded orders and medals during the Great Patriotic War or in the post-war period, but only recently were actually able to receive these decorations.
Addressing the veterans, Mr Medvedev said that he felt considerable emotion looking through the decoration award lists from the war years, which constitute a unique record of the many personal feats of courage that together led to victory.
The President awarded the veterans the Order of the Great Patriotic War I and II degree, the Order of the Red Star and the Order of Glory III degree, and the medals For Courage, For Services in Battle, For the Defence of Leningrad, and For the Taking of Konigsberg.
Also present at the ceremony were Ilyas Daudi, who took part in military operations in Afghanistan, and Yevgeny Fedotov, who took part in military operations in South Ossetia in 2008. Both were decorated with the Hero of the Russian Federation.
Those decorated at the ceremony included Russian servicemen who received orders and medals for carrying out their military duties during counterterrorist operations in the Republic of Chechnya and during Russia’s peace enforcement operation in Georgia in August 2008.
The ceremony took place in the Grand Kremlin Palace’s St George Hall, named in honour of the military order of St George the Victorious, founded in 1769. Engraved in gold letters on the marble panels of the hall’s walls are the names of 500 military units that distinguished themselves in battle, and more than 11,000 cavaliers of this honoured order.