Kremlin scales back May 9 parade as military vehicles vanish from Red Square
The Kremlin invents excuse for scaled-down May 9 parade (Photo: REUTERS/Ramil Sitdikov)
The Kremlin said this year’s May 9 parade will take place in
a “scaled-down format,” citing a “terrorist threat” and the fact that the date
is not an anniversary, Meduza
reported on April 29.
“The parade will take place, but last year’s parade was an
anniversary parade, a large-scale one, as is customary on a milestone date.
This date is not an anniversary, but the parade will still take place, albeit
in a scaled-down format,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry earlier said this year’s May 9
parade on Moscow’s Red Square would not include military vehicles. The ministry
said only service members — including cadets and representatives of various
branches of the military — would march in the parade.
The ministry attributed the decision to the “current
operational situation.”
The BBC’s Russian service noted that military vehicles would
be absent from the Red Square parade for the first time since Russia launched
its full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022.
Lithuania and Latvia refused to allow a plane carrying
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to cross their airspace on its way to Moscow
on May 9. Fico later said he would not attend the May 9 parade in Moscow but
was not canceling his visit to Russia.
In 2025, 29 foreign leaders arrived in Moscow for May 9
celebrations. Along with Fico, they included Serbian President Aleksandar
Vucic, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and
Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam.
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