June 22 will forever be imprinted into the hearts of Russians, as the Day of Remembrance and Grief in Russia as the Great Patriotic War (World War II) began at 4am this day in 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The Third Reich and its Axis cohorts began a massive invasion of the Soviet Union under the code name Operation Barbarossa. TASS recalls the first days of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War.