On May 1, 1945, the Red Flag flew over the Reichstag. This happened after Mikhail Minin, during the storming of the Reichstag, managed to climb to the roof first the day before.
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he enlisted in the militia. He fought on the Leningrad Front and participated in breaking the blockade of Leningrad. After being wounded and successfully treated, he became a front-line artillery scout. He served in the 136th Artillery Brigade of the 79th Rifle Corps of the 3rd Shock Army. Military rank: sergeant.
He was included in one of the assault groups tasked with raising the Banner of Victory over the Reichstag. On April 30, 1945, together with Senior Sergeant Gazi Zagitov and Alexander Lisimenko, Sergeant Alexei Bobrov and Captain Vladimir Makov managed to penetrate the Reichstag and were the first to raise the Victory Banner on the dome from the western part of the building at 9:30 p.m.
The battle for the Reichstag was bloody. The area was guarded by elite SS units with a total strength of about 6,000 people. They were supported by tanks, assault guns and a large number of artillery pieces.
The group crawled as close as possible to the “Royal Square” and under the cover of artillery, rushed forward with a powerful blow. Fierce fighting began. German snipers were shooting from the windows everywhere. Out of 51 people, only 14 soldiers managed to approach the building. The fighting became more and more fierce, but the 14 managed to capture two offices on the first floor of the central building. There, they unfurled the flag through the windows as agreed. But it was too low and the Soviet units did not notice them. New skirmishes followed. The fighters managed to capture two offices on the second floor. They unfurled the flag again. Now they were noticed. The artillery intensified its fire. The battalions of captains Neustroev and Davydov came to the rescue.
Captain Samsonov's battalion managed to sneak in from the right side of the building. The fight became more and more bloody. Floor by floor the fighters advanced to the roof. And lo and behold, they climbed to the roof and what did they see: mines, shells and bullets were raining down like hail. In this situation it was impossible to put the flag on the dome. Therefore, they tied it to the outstretched arm of the Bronze Horseman. A German anti-aircraft battery, which by chance survived the fire of the Soviet artillery, began to fire at the flag. Egorov and Kantaria lay down under the Bronze Horseman.
The first shell was armor-piercing. It hit the horseman, passed through him without exploding. But one of the next shells managed to hit the horseman's arm and took off the flag. The two soldiers, hidden next to the horseman, waited for darkness to fall, climbed onto the dome, tied the red flag tightly and left it to fly.
After the war, he continued to serve in the Red Army. He graduated from the Valerian Kuibyshev Military Engineering Academy (Moscow). He served in the Strategic Missile Forces. He retired with the military rank of lieutenant colonel (1969). He returned to the city of Pskov. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree, etc. Honorary citizen of the city of Pskov.