Leading Russian musicians on Thursday staged a classical concert in the ancient theater of Syria's ravaged Palmyra in a show by the Kremlin to herald its successes in the war-torn country, AFP reports.
Famed conductor Valery Gergiev led Saint Petersburg's celebrated Mariinsky orchestra through pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, Sergei Prokofiev and Rodion Shchedrin in front of a crowd of Russian soldiers, government ministers and journalists.
Cellist Sergei Roldugin -- a personal friend of President Vladimir Putin recently caught up in the scandal over the leaked Panama Papers -- played a solo against the backdrop of the Roman amphitheater where ISIS jihadists staged mass executions less than a year ago.
"Thank you for today's amazing humanitarian act -- the concert in a Palmyra liberated from terrorists," Putin said in an address from Russia broadcast at the start of the concert.