Putin invited Macron to attend the celebrations at a meeting at the G20 summit in Osaka, which ended on 29 June.

"Yes, I will be there. Mr Putin invited me and I will come ... The celebration of this date is important to France because we know that we owe Russia and those who resisted", Macron said in a video aired by the Russian Channel One.

Putin also conveyed a similar invitation to US President Donald Trump. The US President stated that he told Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit that he would seriously consider visiting Russia for the traditional Victory Day military parade in Moscow next year.

"You know, Russia lost, he said, 25 million people, I had actually heard 50 million people ... They suffered greatly and they are having a 75th ... celebration of defeat of the Nazis, and he invited me and [I] said I would give it very serious consideration", Trump said at a press conference when asked a relevant question.

The Great Patriotic War, which spanned from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945, claimed the lives of some 27 million people from Russia and other former Soviet republics. The war was fought along the Eastern Front of World War II between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and its allies.