Ceremonies to commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day are drawing thousands of visitors to the cemeteries, beaches and stone-walled villages of Normandy this week, including some of the few remaining survivors of the largest sea-borne invasion
Obama and Hollande dined together in Paris on Thursday evening and discussed ways of easing the Ukraine crisis before Hollande held a second, separate dinner with Putin. The separate meals showed the lengths to which French officials have gone to
Putin's relations with Ukraine as well as with the European Union and the United States have been tense since pro-Western protesters ousted a Moscow-friendly Ukrainian president from power in February and Russia then seized Crimea.
Further complicating the diplomatic meetings on Friday is US opposition to a 1.2 billion euro ($1.63 billion) French contract to sell two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia. The US government says the deal sends the wrong message to Russia at a
"There is a path in which Russia has the capacity to engage directly with President Poroshenko now. He should take it," Obama said. "If he does not - if he continues a strategy of undermining the sovereignty of Ukraine, then we have no choice but to
Royal Air Force planes, towing gliders, are silhouetted in the light of dawn on D-Day over the English Channel on June 13, 1944.
"But it is also a major international event which should serve the interests of peace," Hollande added, evoking the diplomatic challenges under the surface of the ceremonies.
At a Group of Seven (G7) summit of world leaders in Brussels on Thursday, Hollande called the D-Day tribute "an important occasion to express gratitude and fraternity.
While the unity of allies and their bloody sacrifices will be the big theme of the D-Day remembrance, the government leaders will be sounding each other out in private on the worst security challenge in Europe since the Cold War: Ukraine.
Wreaths, parades, parachute-landings and fireworks will be staged in honour of history's largest amphibian assault on June 6, 1944 when 160,000 U.S., British and Canadian troops waded ashore to confront Nazi Germany's forces, hastening its defeat.
French President Francois Hollande's decision to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to participate in the official ceremony despite his exclusion from the G-7 summit in Brussels is being seen by some as justified recognition of the Soviet Union
German soldiers coming over the crest of a hill with their hands over their heads in surrender to American troops during the battle for the Normandy beachhead in France on June 11, 1944.
Germans have also been included in D-Day ceremonies over the past several years, in a demonstration of Europe's unity today. Some 22,000 German soldiers are among the many buried around Normandy.
The international ceremonies — which will include President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II and other world leaders — will focus on the Allies and the massive invasion that helped them win World War II.
By midmorning hundreds of visitors walked among the cemetery's long rows of white crosses and stars of David. Schoolchildren and retirees, soldiers in uniform and veterans in wheelchairs quietly move from grave to grave, pausing to read the brief
The Russians' participation comes despite tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine.
With many D-Day veterans now in their 90s, this year's anniversary has the added poignancy of being the last time that many of those who took part in the battle will be able to make the long journey back to Normandy and tell their stories.
Russian paratroopers joined the commemorations late Thursday, jumping down onto the town of Arromanches waving a Russian flag, in a reminder of their role fighting the Nazis on the eastern front in World War II and the millions of lives the Soviet
Ceremonies large and small are taking place across Normandy, ahead of an international summit on Friday in Ouistreham, a small port that was the site of a strategic battle on D-Day.
"I praise God I made it and that we've never had another World War," he said.
The San Diego, California resident landed on D-Day with the 29th Infantry Division and said he kept fighting until he reached the Elbe River in Germany the following April.
D-Day veteran Clair Martin, 93, said he's come back to Omaha Beach three times in the last 70 years — "four if you count the time they were shooting at me."
For many visitors, the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, with its 9,387 white marble tombstones on a bluff overlooking the site of the battle's bloodiest fighting at Omaha Beach, is the emotional centerpiece of pilgrimages to honor the tens
World leaders and dignitaries including President Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth II will gather to honor the more than 150,000 American, British, Canadian and other Allied D-Day veterans who risked and gave their lives to defeat Adolf Hitler's