Putin orders Stalingrad tribute

Stalingrad marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the name of the city of Stalingrad to be reinstated on a Moscow plaque commemorating the 1943 battle.

Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd in 1961, after the posthumous disgrace of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Mr Putin said his aim was to celebrate the turning point of World War II.

He said the change was also designed to pay tribute to "the heroism of Stalingrad's defenders and to preserve the history of the Russian state".

Mr Putin asked the Moscow authorities to replace the "Volgograd" with "Stalingrad" on a plaque near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

It features in an alley of granite blocks containing capsules of soil from "Hero Cities" - Leningrad, Kiev, Volgograd, Odessa, Sevastopol, Minsk, Kerch, Novorissiisk, Tula and the Fortress of Brest.

The battle of Stalingrad raged from August 1942 to February 1943 and is thought to have claimed more lives than any other episode of World War II.

It was the first major Soviet victory of the war.

More than a million Soviet soldiers died defending the city.

Post-Soviet leaders have resisted pressure from nationalists and war veterans to restore the name of the city itself to Stalingrad - fearing it would signal a return to Stalinist dictatorship.