The group of sculptors designing the monument showed the model to Russian and Israeli prime ministers. Salavat Shcherbakov leads the group, and its members include Mikhail Naroditsky and Vasily Perfilyev.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech (as translated): I think this is a wonderful project. I promised Mr Putin at our meeting last year that we would build this monument. And we are proud to say that we have fulfilled that promise. History has seen no war as just or as cruel as that war. It claimed the lives of one third of our people. The Soviet Union lost more than 20 million people. We will never forget that the Soviet people, the Red Army saved humanity, in its entirety, and our people from extermination. We will always be grateful for that.

This memorial is both a national and international monument. It symbolises historical justice. I am extremely glad that your group won the contest. I know that it was difficult because many excellent projects were presented. I studied each of them personally. But your design, your idea captured everyone’s imagination, since it symbolises the road from hell to hope.

We are very grateful to you. I would like to present you with this honorary certificate.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much. I would like to thank the prime minister. We truly appreciate Israel’s attitude to the memory of the tragic past and of the role that the Soviet Union and the Red Army had in fighting Nazism. And we can understand the losses that the Jewish people suffered in the fight against Nazism.

I regularly meet with Russian war veterans. I have also had the pleasure of meeting with the veterans living in Israel on two occasions, and I can tell without exaggeration that they are one big family.

I want to thank you and say how pleased I am that it was a Russian team of artists that won in a difficult competition where 70 artists took part.