King Charles III led the nation Sunday in a two-minute silence in remembrance of fallen service personnel in central London as the Princess of Wales looked on, a further sign the royal family is slowly returning to normal at the end of a year in which two of the most popular royals were sidelined by cancer.

Remembrance Sunday is a totemic event in the U.K., with the monarch leading senior royals, political leaders, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his eight living predecessors, and envoys from the Commonwealth countries in laying wreaths at the Cenotaph, the Portland stone memorial that serves as the focal point for honoring the nation’s war dead.

The service is held on the second Sunday of November to mark the signing of the armistice to end World War I “on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” in 1918. Across the U.K., services are conducted at the same time in memory of the dead.

After the two-minute silence, buglers from the Royal Marines played the Last Post and Charles led the wreath-laying part of the service.

The 75-year-old king, dressed in his Royal Navy uniform of the Admiral of the Fleet, laid a wreath of poppies at the base of the Cenotaph in recognition of the fallen from conflicts dating back to World War I.

His eldest son and the heir to the throne, William, left his own floral tribute — featuring the Prince of Wales’ feathers and a new ribbon in Welsh red.

Dressed in somber black, his wife, Kate, watched on from a balcony of the nearby Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, as is tradition. Queen Camilla, who would normally be standing next to the princess, was not present as she recovered from a chest infection.

It is the first time since the start of the year that Kate is carrying out two consecutive days of public official engagements. On Saturday, she attended the Royal British Legion Festival Of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall.

Following the wreath-laying, around 10,000 veterans, including those who have fought in wars this century, notably in Afghanistan and Iraq, marched past the Cenotaph. With the passage of time, there were only a handful of World War II veterans present.

Charles’ ceremonial role as commander in chief of the armed forces is a holdover from the days when the monarch led his troops into battle. But the link between the monarchy and the military is still very strong, with service members taking an oath of allegiance to the king and members of the royal family supporting service personnel through a variety of charities. Charles and William served on active duty in the military before taking up full-time royal duties.

“They are showing respect to us, as we’ve shown to them by serving,” said Victor Needham-Crofton, 91, an army veteran who served during the Suez Crisis of 1956 and later in Kenya.

Charles was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in February, forcing him to step away from public appearances for two months as he focused on his treatment and recovery. Just a few weeks later, Kate announced her own cancer diagnosis, which sidelined her for much of the year as she underwent chemotherapy.

The king has been in good form in recent months and recently completed a taxing trip to Australia and Samoa. Kate, who made her first post-diagnosis public appearance during the monarch’s birthday parade in June, is slowly returning to public duties.

Prince William reflected this week on the strain that the cancer scare has placed on the royal family.

“I’m so proud of my wife, I’m proud of my father, for handling the things that they have done,” William told reporters on Thursday as he wrapped up a four-day trip to South Africa. “But from a personal family point of view, it’s been, yeah, it’s been brutal.”

While the Cenotaph was the focus of the national remembrance service, communities throughout the U.K. held their own ceremonies on Sunday.

Needham-Crofton, who served with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers before a truck accident ended his military career, planned to attend a local service in Eastbourne on the south coast of England.

He has spent much of his time honoring veterans and trying to help them, including 20 years as a volunteer for the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans. Like some of his army tasks, raising cash was rather grueling as it involved standing in front of London subway stations collecting coins to help fund the group’s efforts.

“I like to respect all the veterans and do what I can for them,” he told The Associated Press. “It’s a brotherhood really. Even if you don’t know a veteran that you meet, you feel a kinship toward them. That is very important to me. I shall be like that for the rest of my life.”

A massive drone strike rattled Moscow and its suburbs overnight into Sunday, injuring a woman and temporarily halting traffic at some of Russia’s busiest airports, while a huge nighttime wave of Russian drones targeted Ukraine, officials reported.

A top U.K. defense official meanwhile said that Russian forces had suffered their worst month of casualties in October since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The chief of the U.K. defense staff, Tony Radakin, told CBS News partner BBC that Moscow’s troops suffered an average of 1,500 dead and wounded “every single day,” bringing their total losses in the war to 700,000.

“The enormous pain and suffering that the Russian nation is having to bear because of Putin’s ambition,” Radakin said.

Russia’s defense ministry said a total of 70 drones were shot down overnight in Russian territory, including 34 over Moscow’s outskirts. Russia’s aviation authority said flights were briefly grounded at major international airports including Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo.

A woman in her 50s suffered burns to her face, neck and hands after drones sparked a blaze in her village southeast of Moscow, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported.

No one was hurt in Moscow itself, according to Sobyanin, although Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram carried eyewitness reports of drone debris setting fire to suburban homes.

According to Radakin, ordinary Russians were paying “an extraordinary price” for the war, even as a grueling, monthslong Russian offensive in Ukraine’s industrial east continues to eke out gains. He did not say how UK officials had calculated the Russian casualty figures.

“There is no doubt that Russia is making tactical, territorial gains and that is putting pressure on Ukraine,” he said.

But he said the losses were for “tiny increments of land,” and that Moscow’s mounting defense and security spending was putting an increasing strain on the country.

Radakin insisted that Ukraine’s Western partners should stand by it for “as long as it takes” to beat back Russian aggression, even as allies of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have signaled that Kyiv may have to cede territory to seek peace.

On Sunday, the Kremlin’s official spokesman voiced cautious optimism about Trump’s upcoming presidency, saying: “At least, he talks about peace … he does not talk about confrontation.”

“The signals are positive. Trump, during his election campaign, said that he perceives everything through deals, that he can make deals that will lead everyone toward peace,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a briefing.

“He does not talk about a desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and this favorably distinguishes him from the current (US) administration,” Peskov said.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have kept a tight lid on casualty figures since the start of the full-scale war despite regular reports of Russian forces taking huge losses following “human wave” attacks that aim to exhaust Ukrainian defenses.

Meanwhile, Russia overnight launched a “record” 145 drones at Ukrainian territory, according to Ukraine’s air force, 62 of which were shot down. A further 67 were “lost”, the air force said, a likely reference to electronic jamming that caused the drones to veer off course.

At least one person was injured as Russian drones struck residential areas in Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa, local Gov. Oleh Kiper reported.