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Russian army planes prepare for parades in commemoration of victory over Germany during the Second World War in Moscow on May 7, 2019. REUTERS / Shamil Zhumatov

Russia in turn celebrates the victory over Nazi Germany with, as every 9-May, a military parade on Red Square. Every year, volunteer organizations find themselves on the battlefield in the hope of finding the remains of dead Soviet soldiers.

With our correspondent in Moscow, Daniel Vallot

" In the East, there is Moscow and there is a village called Maslovo : it is one of the closest points to Moscow where the Germans managed to go, " says a volunteer.

In single file, the volunteers advance in a forest where several hundred German and Soviet soldiers clashed in the autumn of 1941. Alexei serves as a guide, with his shovel and his metal detector. " Where we dug, there were trenches for a small group of soldiers ," said the man, who returns here year after year. Here it was to live, and there to hide and to shoot. "

The hope of the group of volunteers is to find the remains of Soviet soldiers, so that they can then give them the burial they never had.

" We have already managed to identify a soldier, and find his son ," says Anton, the black beard and military trellis, who has been involved in these searches for nearly 20 years. This man was five years old when his father went to fight and today he is an old man. He came for the funeral, he was handed the medallion and that little piece of paper on which his father had written his name. It was very moving. "

Reporters in Kezmino, near Moscow, where voluntary associations meet every year on the battlefields of the Second World War 09/05/2019 - by Daniel Vallot Play

But it is very rare to be able to identify fallen Soviet soldiers. In 1941, many of them went to the front without wearing a medallion. It is estimated that more than two million soldiers could not be identified, or whose bodies were never found.

These Russian volunteers seek the remains of Soviet # dead soldiers on the battlefields of #WorldWorld. Their objective: to give a burial to these soldiers and to try to identify them. Report to listen this May 9 @RFI My images for RFI #Moscou pic.twitter.com/4yPZd1c2Ly

Alexandra Dalsbaek (@alexdalsbaek) 8 May 2019