MOSCOW, May 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The huge parade marking the 60th anniversary of the victory of Russia's Great Patriotic War over Nazi Germany was underway on Moscow's Red Square on Monday.

    More than 50 world leaders, including Chinese President Hu Jintao, US President George W. Bush, joined Russian President Vladimir Putin and war veterans from all over the world near Lenin's tomb for the military parade.

    In his keynote speech, Putin said Russia will always remember the support of the United States and European allies in defeating Nazism.

    "Sixty years has passed but every May 9 the memory of the war calls upon our consciousness and binds us to a great responsibility,"Putin said.

    "We truly acknowledge how close to the brink of a bottomless abyss the world stood ... It is a shared victory, we never divide it into 'ours' and 'theirs', and we will always remember our allies," he added.

    The parade was to be followed by wreath-laying ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and by a Kremlin reception.

    The Soviet Union fought 80 percent of the German Fascist forcesin the main anti-fascist war theater in Europe. The Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people during the Great Patriotic War.Enditem