Crouching over the sun-drenched soil, Alfred Abayev picks up a charred fragment of a Soviet warplane downed in a World War II battle with advancing Nazi forces. You can see it was burning, he says, pointing at the weathered trace of a red star. Abayev and members of his search team rummage the steppe for remains of the Red Army soldiers who fell in the autumn of 1942 in fierce fighting with Nazi troops pushing toward the Caspian Sea south of Stalingrad. Stiff resistance by the Red Army stopped the Wehrmacht onslaught in the steppes of Kalmykia, and months later the enemy's forces were encircled in Stalingrad and surrendered, a major defeat for the Nazis that marked a turning point in World War II. The search for remains of fallen Red Army soldiers near Khulkhuta, in Kalmykia, a southern province that lies between the Volga River and the Caspian Sea, is part of a broad effort by myriad volunteer groups across Russia to pay tribute to fallen World War II soldiers. Russia's losses stood .

Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Victory Day, the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, in a ceremony shorn of its usual military parade and pomp by the coronavirus pandemic. In neighboring Belarus, however, the ceremonies went ahead in full, with tens of thousands of people in the sort of proximity that has been almost unseen in the world for months. Putin on Saturday laid flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier just outside the Kremlin walls and gave a short address honoring the valor and suffering of the Soviet army during the war. Victory Day is Russia's most important secular holiday and this year's observance had been expected to be especially large because it is the 75th anniversary, but the Red Square military parade and a mass procession called The Immortal Regiment were postponed as part of measures to stifle the spread of the virus. The only vestige of the conventional show of military might was a flyover of central Moscow by 75 warplanes and .

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TIMES VIEW Europe had to react to MH17 downing Chandan Nandy Moscow did not stop after annexing Crimea but continues to foment insurgency in Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin will give a 20-minute speech at a war memorial beside the Kremlin walls, an unprecedented move, instead of presiding over a traditional parade featuring thousands of troops and military equipment.

Black Widow, which was scheduled to hit the theatres on May 1, will now release on November 6 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The US state department accused China of colluding with Russia to manipulate social media platforms to spread fake news around coronavirus.

The Indian men's hockey team will take on Russia, while the women's team will face US on November 1 and 2.

PR Sreejesh advised the men's hockey team to keep their 'scoreboard clean' when they take on Russia in their 2020 Tokyo Olympic Qualifiers at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar

Hockey Olympic Qualifiers: Mandeep Singh scored twice while Harmanpreet Singh and SV Sunil found a goal each as India defeated Russia 4-2.

Hockey Olympic Qualifiers: India play their second leg against Russia on Saturday after defeating them 4-2 in the first leg.

Hockey Olympic Qualifiers: Indian women's and men's teams booked their spot in Tokyo 2020 with wins over USA and Russia, respectively.

Borussia Dortmund has said that there will be more tests done to ensure the largest possible degree of certainty.

Lewis Hamilton will be going into the Russian Grand Prix, where Mercedes have won every contest since 2014, on the back of three consecutive losses.

Honda's Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso's Pierre Gasly, along with with Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Alexander Albon have all have been handed grid penalties after being given new engines for the Russian Grand Prix.

Russian Grand Prix: Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Valtteri Bottas finished first, second and third, respectivey, in second practice.

Russian Grand Prix: Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel took the first, second and third spot, respectively, in the qualifying.

Charles Leclerc became the first Ferrari driver, since Michael Schumacher, to take four pole positions in a row.

Alex Albon of Red Bull will be from the pit lane after his team fitted a new floor to his car after a crash during qualifying.

Russian Grand Prix: Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton won the race ahead of teammate Valtteri Bottas while Ferrari's Charles Leclerc finished third.

Russian Grand Prix: Sebastian Vettel defied Ferrari's team orders early on and later, an engine failure put him out of the race.

In a tweet, PM Modi also noted that tens of thousands of Indian soldiers also made the sacrifice in the second World War.

Russia now ranks fourth in the overall number of reported virus cases in Europe and fifth in the world.

Trump and Putin spoke by phone, also discussing the global coronavirus pandemic, the White House said.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday said the "Russia hoax" made it very difficult for the leaders of the two countries to deal with each other.

The US President said all the American journalists with the Pulitzer Prize should be forced to give it back because they were all wrong.

The committee's lawyers have until May 18 to file their response to the Justice Department's request to block the materials being immediately handed over, Roberts' brief order said.

The Global Engagement Center earlier said thousands of Russian-linked social media accounts were spreading conspiracies about the pandemic.

A government tally showed 10,669 new cases over the last 24 hours, fewer than Thursday's record of 11,231 bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 187,859.

"We will certainly celebrate this anniversary extensively and solemnly, as usual," Vladimir Putin said, pledging that Russia would hold its traditional Red Square military parade and commemorative processions at a later date.

Celebrations of this year's Victory Day were muted after the Kremlin grudgingly agreed to postpone plans for a grand parade with world leaders due to coronavirus

Russia's coronavirus taskforce said that 104 people had died overnight, bringing the national death toll to 1,827.

Russia's GRU military intelligence service appears to have got hold of many emails from Chancellor Angela Merkel's constituency office in a 2015 hack attack on Germany's parliament, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Friday, without citing its sources.

Russian authorities said on Saturday they had recorded 10,817 new cases of the coronavirus in the last day, pushing the nationwide tally to 198,676.

Russian authorities said on Saturday they had recorded 10,817 new cases of the coronavirus in the last day, pushing the nationwide tally to 198,676.

Russian soldiers are operating drones over Venezuela as part of a search operation for members of a paramilitary force that led a botched invasion this week, local media reported on Friday, citing deleted tweets from a state military command center.

President Vladimir Putin told Russians on Saturday they are invincible when they stand together as he presided over celebrations of victory in World War Two that were slimmed down because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Back in March, the Russian President had reassured his citizens that the world-wide pandemic situation was "under control" in Russia thanks to early intervention measures taken by his government.