Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) is accompanied by WWII veterans as he takes part in a ceremony of laying flowers at the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Sevastopol in 1941-1942 in Sevastopol, Crimea, May 9, 2014. Putin arrived in Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in March, to take part in celebrations marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. [Photo: Alexei Druzhinin]