China News Agency, Moscow, April 24 (Reporter Wang Xiujun) Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill on the 24th to change the end date of World War II from September 2 in 1945 to September 3.

Data map: Russian President Putin.

  Japan signed a surrender letter to many countries including the United States, China, and the Soviet Union on the US battleship "Missouri" on Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. Thereafter, the Soviet Union declared September 3 as the end of World War II. In the original 1946 and 1947, the end of World War II was the same as the Victory Day of the Soviet Patriotic War on May 9th, which was a holiday. However, from 1948, September 3 was no longer a holiday and gradually became an ordinary day. In 1995, Russian Federation law did not set September 3 as a holiday.

  On September 1, 2004, there was a terrorist incident in Russia where Chechen terrorists hijacked students, teachers, and parents as hostages in the city of Obeslan. The incident eventually killed more than 300 hostages. After this incident subsided on September 3, Putin set September 3 as the anti-terrorism unity day.

  In 2010, the then Russian President Medvedev approved September 2 as the end of World War II.

  In April 2020, the head of the National Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Shamanov and others submitted a bill requesting that the end of World War II be changed to September 3 in order to maintain historical justice and commemorate the victims.

  Although this proposal was opposed by some people who lost relatives and friends in the Beslan hostage incident, the Russian State Duma and the Federal Council (the upper house of parliament) passed this bill on April 14 and April 17. (Finish)