AP PHOTOS: On Victory Day, veterans recall the Soviet Union’s sacrifice in World War II

MOSCOW (AP) — When she heard the news of Nazi Germany surrendering 80 years ago, Valentina Efremova couldn’t believe the devastating war was over.

Efremova, now 101, was a teenager when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. She ended up serving as a nurse in field hospitals on the front and remembers the horrors of the fighting all too well.

“When wounded soldiers our age were brought in, I cried. It hurt. I felt so sorry for them. They called me ‘little sister.’ But I pulled myself together. I came from a very disciplined family,” she told The Associated Press from Yakutsk in eastern Siberia.

The Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people in what Russians call the “Great Patriotic War” -– a staggering toll that left a lasting imprint on the nation’s collective memory.

Many who served were teenagers when the war began: nurses, communications specialists laying wire under fire, or new recruits deployed to Europe. Some fought in the Far East after Germany’s surrender, in final battles against Japan.

The portraits featured here are of veterans who served in the Soviet military before the breakup of the USSR who are from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. They were field medics, scouts, radio operators and sappers who dug anti-tank trenches. Some stayed in the military after the war, while others returned home to civilian lives.

Still Russia’s most significant secular holiday, Victory Day on May 9 honors the enormous wartime sacrifices of the Soviet Union. It also serves as a platform for the Kremlin to promote its own brand of patriotism.

President Vladimir Putin, who has led Russia for 25 of the 80 years that have passed since the end of the war, has made Victory Day central to his rule, using it to frame and justify what the Kremlin calls it “a special military operation” in Ukraine.

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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.