The Russian Youth League and WWII veterans lit candles on Monday, June 22, to honor the memory of those fallen in the fight against fascism. The action took place at the Eternitate Memorial in Chisinau, where earlier in the morning government officials had participated in a flower-laying ceremony, Info-Prim Neo reports. “The Russian Youth League and World War II veterans have always observed this date because the Moldovan people remembers very well what happened then”, the League's leader Igor Tuleatev stated. He criticized the dignitaries for laying flowers at the Memorial merely for political purposes. “I was 17 when the war started and they sent me to fight. Although I was young, I knew how to use a weapon. During a battle, I injured my foot”, said veteran Vsevolod Dubrov. Another man who took part in the manifestation told he was 6 when the invasion began, but he remembers how Germans knocked at the door around 4.00. He lost his father, grandfather and other relatives. On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany started Operation Barbarossa and attacked USSR.