On 9 September 2026 Vladimir Vasilyevich Raspolykhin passed away. He took part in the liberation of Budapest and Vienna and was the last of the city’s liberators still with us. Four days later we gathered at the Heroes’ Monument of the Red Army, where he himself once led the Immortal Regiment.
The column walked from Maria-Theresien-Platz past the Vienna Opera to Schwarzenbergplatz. More than a thousand people, portraits, a St George’s ribbon carried across the street. About what we say thank you for — and why this day bears directly on Austrian neutrality.
An Immortal Regiment commemoration for the Day of the Unknown Soldier. 3 December 2023 in Austria.
Mher Avetisyan, General Coordinator of the International Immortal Regiment movement, on the mission of the Movement: to stop the third world war
