Moscow, May 1:
Russia’s traditional parade marking the 81st anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II this year will take place without tanks, missiles and other military equipment, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement late Tuesday.
It will be the first time in nearly two decades – and in the more than four years of Russia’s war in Ukraine – that no military equipment will rumble through Moscow’s Red Square on May 9, the day Russia celebrates its most important secular holiday. The Kremlin has used it to showcase its military might and global clout.
Victory Day parades on Red Square involved military equipment and various weaponry every year since 2008.
The ministry statement this week cited the “current operational situation” as a reason for excluding a military equipment convoy, as well as cadets, from the parade.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday blamed Ukraine and its “terrorist activity, in an apparent reference to Kyiv’s strikes deep inside Russia. “All measures are being taken to minimize the danger,” he said.
The parade will feature “servicemen from higher military educational institutions of all kinds and certain service branches of the Russian Armed Forces” and a traditional military aircraft flyover, the ministry said.
World War II remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under Communist rule, and the Kremlin has leveraged that sentiment to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power.
The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in what it calls the Great Patriotic War in 1941-45, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche.
President Vladimir Putin, who has ruled Russia for over 25 years, has turned Victory Day into a key pillar of his tenure and has tried to use it to justify the war in Ukraine.
Last year’s parade was the largest since Russia sent troops into Ukraine, and drew the most global leaders to Moscow in a decade, including high-profile guests like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico.
It featured over 11,500 troops and more than 180 military vehicles, including tanks, armored infantry vehicles and artillery used on the battlefield in Ukraine, as well as huge Yars nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile launchers and drones carried on military trucks. Fighter jets flew over Red Square, too.