"Mother visited dad in his hospital ward after he was brought there with a wound, and he fed her from his ration, he gave her some food. But a little bit later he began having hungry fainting-fits because he was giving her almost everything he had. The medics saw it, and they no longer let her come to the hospital. Later he recovered somewhat and he went to visit her at home. As he approached our house, he saw dead bodies being taken out. And he found mother among the bodies, but it became clear that she was still alive. She was taken back and she survived. My parents didn’t like to discuss this theme. During the war they lost one child, my brother, whom I had never seen. It was tough, and so they didn’t like to talk about that," Vladimir Putin recalled.

You know, as I grow older, I begin having a different perception even of what I heard in my childhood. Of course, I wasn’t conscious of the intensity of the tragedy that was happening in those years with the city, with its inhabitants, with my near and dear, the tragedy of a huge number, of millions of ordinary people, in the first place. The military, after all, were being given food. But there was a moment, let us say it straight, when no one was taking care of the inhabitants any longer. They were just dying of hunger or freezing to death. This is why it is primarily an immense tragedy of a large number of people. But on the other hand, it is also a feat of valor, it’s a case of unparalleled heroism and endurance," said Russian Premier.