The weather over Moscow today cancelled the sweeping flyovers of wave after wave of new Russian combat aircraft, but yesterday’s rehearsal produced an impressive procession of Russian air power.
A descendant of a soldier who fought in the Great War, Private Vakav is one of 10,000 soldiers, 100 vehicles and 72 aircraft in the parade today. Private Aleksey Vakav carries that Red Banner today, goose-stepping in precise marshal cadence between saber-wielding guards of the 154 th Independent Commandants Regiment. Disease, frostbite, hypothermia and starvation claimed more casualties on both sides than battle did. They had long since run out of ammunition. During the Siege of Stalingrad Russian soldiers like these men lured German invaders into the ruins of bombed-out buildings and dropped concrete blocks on them to kill them. Dignitaries flank President Putin along with aging Russian Heroes of the Russian Federation, their faces long and their lapels sagging under an unlikely volume of medals. “This was a tremendous tragedy” says Russian President Vladimir Putin in his remarks from the reviewing stand. The Great War was a cataclysm that claimed a staggering 20 million Russian civilians and soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. This very same Red Banner, frayed but still vibrant in defiance, flew over the ruins of Hitler’s headquarters when Germany was reduced to ruble in 1945. Meliton Kantaria is marched down Manezhnaya Street in Moscow today. The red banner, raised over the Reichstag in Berlin on this day in 1945 by Sgt.
The Victory Day parade in Moscow accompanies large military parades in 26 other large Russian cities to observe the solemn holiday. This is the largest military display and celebration anywhere in the world by a massive margin. It is Victory Day today in Moscow and across all of Russia, a country so vast it spans 11 time zones, nearly half the globe. Seventy-two years have passed since the Russians defeated Germany in WWII, the Great Patriotic War.
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A crack in the Russian grey sky reveals a shard of sunlight. It is the hour of victory, the greatest military victory in the history of all mankind. Then the great Spasskaya Tower clock bell tolls brightly through the grey. A muted, dignified tribute to the millions lost. The tanks, the missile launchers, the artillery cannons sit motionless. It said four Ukrainian servicemen had been wounded in attacks in the past 24 hours.You can hear air moving between the ranks of silent soldiers frozen at attention. Though a ceasefire is still tenuously holding, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday that separatists, backed by Russia, were keeping up attacks with artillery and mortar bombing on government forces in the east and south-east of Ukraine. Moscow, which annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine last year, accuses the West of orchestrating the events that led to the Ukrainian uprising. More than 6,100 people have been killed in fighting between pro-Russian separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine which Kiev says has been stoked by Russia. In a further sign of distancing itself from its former Soviet master, Ukraine joined most of Europe in a separate ceremony on Friday, a day before Russia.Īt a second ceremony on Saturday, Poroshenko said: “We will never again mark this day with the Russian scenario which cold-bloodedly uses our victory day as an apology for its expansionist policies and for keeping its neighbours in its orbit and recreating empire.” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was also among those watching.ĭignitaries from India, former Soviet republics and communist-era allies such as Cuba, also attended, underlining Russia’s role as an outcast in Europe. In a sign of closer ties between the two, a column of Chinese troops took part. Though Western leaders stayed away, Putin was joined under the Kremlin’s walls by about 30 foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, sitting on his right-hand side. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has used the anniversary to whip up patriotism and fuel anti-Western sentiment, and at a parade in Kiev President Petro Poroshenko said Moscow was trying to hog the credit for the World War Two victory at Ukraine’s expense. Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker fighters of the Russian Knights aerobatic display team and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters of the Swifts aerobatic display team fly in formation over the Red Square during the Victory Day parade in Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2015.
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