By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW, May 9 (Reuters) – Russia holds its most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years on Saturday due to the threat of attack from Ukraine, where victory for Moscow’s forces has proven elusive more than four years into the deadliest European conflict since World War Two.
The May 9 parade on Red Square marks Russia’s most revered national holiday – a time to celebrate the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany and to pay homage to the 27 million Soviet citizens, including many from Ukraine, who perished.
Once used to show off Russia’s vast military, including its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, this year’s parade will have no tanks or other military equipment rolling over the cobbles of Red Square.
Soldiers will still march and cheer in the shadow of Vladimir Lenin’s Mausoleum, fighter planes will fly above the towers of the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin will make a speech before laying flowers at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
“In general, everything is as usual, except for the demonstration of military equipment,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
On Friday, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire through May 11 and to carry out an exchange of 1,000 prisoners of war from each side – announced by President Donald Trump as part of U.S. diplomatic efforts to move towards an end to the war.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has warned that any attempt by Kyiv to disrupt Saturday’s event would lead to a massive missile strike on the Ukrainian capital. Moscow told foreign diplomats that they should evacuate Kyiv staff in the event of such an attack.
Each side had accused the other of violating separate ceasefires in the run-up to the commemoration.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday his country would abide by the ceasefire, carry out the prisoner exchange and not disrupt the parade.
Moscow is defended by rings of air defences and electronic barriers designed to confuse and shoot down drones and missiles approaching the capital, which along with the surrounding region has a population of 22 million.
THE WAR IN UKRAINE HAUNTS RUSSIA’S PARADE
After Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Red Army eventually pushed Nazi forces back to Berlin, where Adolf Hitler killed himself and the red Soviet Victory Banner was raised over the Reichstag in May 1945.
Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender came into force at 11:01 p.m. on May 8, 1945, marked as “Victory in Europe Day” by Britain, the United States and France. In Moscow it was already May 9, which became the Soviet Union’s “Victory Day” in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.
But this year’s parade comes amid a wave of anxiousness in Moscow about the ultimate outcome of the conflict in Ukraine.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, left swathes of Ukraine in ruins and drained Russia’s $3 trillion economy, while relations with Europe are worse than at any time since the depths of the Cold War.
“The crisis is still deepening gradually, but any sharp movement can send the economy (and not only the economy) into a tailspin,” jailed pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who has criticised the Kremlin for its conduct of the war, said in a post on Telegram.
Girkin, a former Federal Security Service officer, used a naval analogy to say that Russia’s leaders were more worried about being kicked out of their cabins than about a shipwreck.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed CNN and other Western media reports that Putin’s protection had been intensified because of fears of a coup or assassination. Russian officials have dismissed reports of a coup plot as nonsense.
Just 21 years ago, Putin sat beside U.S. President George W. Bush at the Moscow parade, along with France’s Jacques Chirac and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
This year, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim and Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith will attend.
(Additional reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Editing by Mark Trevelyan, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Ron Popeski)
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