The veteran who sat next to Putin and Xi Jinping turned 100 years old

Evgeny Znamensky, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War (WWII), who was sitting next to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Leader Xi Jinping at the Victory Day Parade on May 9, 2025, turned 100 on Wednesday, August 13. This was reported by his daughter Lyudmila Znamenskaya.

"He lives near Tula, the local authorities came to congratulate him today, his dad is happy, he even said this phrase: "I went on a record," she told TASS.

According to Znamenskaya, the veteran feels good — he exercises daily and is doused with "ice water." On the occasion of the anniversary, the regional administration presented him, who was in a "festive mood," with a bouquet of 101 roses.

The veteran's daughter stressed that he is still impressed by the meeting with Putin, who was "very accessible" to veterans, talked to them and shook their hands in a friendly atmosphere.

Evgeny Znamensky was born in 1925 in Serpukhov, Moscow region. Before his conscription into the Red Army, he took part in the defense of Moscow, extinguishing German "lighters" and helping to create anti—tank trenches. Having received a summons in early 1943, Znamensky went into his first battle in March. He fought on the Steppe, Don and 1st Belorussian fronts. During the war, he crossed the Don, Donets, Vistula, Oder, and Spree rivers. Having been shell-shocked twice in battles, he reached Berlin and signed on the wall of the Reichstag.

After returning from the front, Znamensky was a sailor, worked as a driver on Sakhalin. After a while, returning to his small Homeland, he worked as a car painter and a decorative artist. Znamensky worked at a boarding school as an artist, created a small amateur studio for the production of films in which students and teachers were filmed. Then, after the closure of the educational institution, he moved to Domodedovo, where he is now engaged in patriotic education of young people and actively participates in the veteran movement.

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WWII veteran Peter Golyshkin, who participated in the storming of the Reichstag, turned 100 on June 4. The Department of the Russian Guard for the Rostov region organized a solemn event on this occasion at the veteran's house. He shared with Izvestia the details of the meeting on May 9, 1945 in Berlin. Golyshkin said that the news of the Victory overtook him and his colleagues at the moment when they were sleeping near the Reichstag, on the walls of which he also left his signature with the help of a piece of chalk he found.

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