MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday showed up at a ceremony marking the national holiday — the first big public event he has attended since announcing a nationwide lockdown more than two months ago.
Putin observed the hoisting of the national flag at a memorial park in western Moscow and then took part in an award ceremony. He wasn’t wearing a mask, and neither did most of those whose hands he shook after presenting them with Hero of Russia medals.
Putin pointed to the nation’s “thousand-year history full of pages of great glory and…
