Moscow holds Second World War victory parade ahead of crucial vote to keep Putin in power
Vladimir Putin on Wednesday held a lavish military parade celebrating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, a day before a vote on constitutional amendments that would let the Russian president stay in power at least until 2036.
The grand parade on Moscow’s Red Square is held annually on May 9, but the Kremlin had to postpone it this year because of the growing coronavirus epidemic.
Some 14,000 troops marched across the cobbles of Red Square and past the stands saluting Mr Putin, military veterans and several foreign dignitaries. Military hardware was paraded and intercontinental ballistic missiles rumbled up afterwards.
Mr Putin took to a stage at the start of the parade and declared a moment of silence to commemorate 27 million people that the Soviet Union is estimated to have lost in the war.
“Our duty is to remember about it, remember that the Soviet people took on the main burden of fighting Nazism,” he said, describing the Soviet victory in the war as a historic event that “determined the future of the planet for decades ahead and forever.”
The parade this year was held exactly 75 years after Soviet troops coming back from the war marched across Red Square, throwing flags and banners of the defeated Nazi Germany to the ground.
Victory Day is undoubtedly Russia’s most revered holiday, and brings together families to commemorate the dead and the enormous suffering endured by millions of people in the Soviet Union during the war.
Yet, as the celebrations grow more extravagant, Mr Putin is increasingly being criticised for co-opting Victory Day in order to reassert his power domestically as well as project the image of Russia as a resurgent global military power.
The Red Square parade is now also an elaborate television show, with nearly 70 cameras capturing it from every possible angle such as underneath the feet of the marching troops, looking out at the onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral that tower over the square, and inside a tank cockpit.
Mr Putin, who has used the parade in the past to make keynote foreign policy statements, was markedly reserved this year, reiterating his idea of setting up a new global security framework that would not view Russia as an adversary.
“We realise the importance of boosting friendship between people," he said in his speech. "And we are open for dialogue and cooperation on the most acute issues of the international agenda, including the creation of a safe, common security system that the rapidly changing world requires.”
“Glory to the heroes! Hurrah!” Mr Putin concluded, before cannons at the Kremlin wall rang out, signalling the start of the main part of the parade.
The Red Square parade is Mr Putin’s final salvo ahead of nationwide voting on Thursday on constitutional amendments that propose scrapping the limits of terms in office for the sitting president.
Mr Putin, who likes to portray himself as the father of the nation, has been accused of taking a back seat during the epidemic, leaving it up to regional governors to mount the response to the health care emergency.
His approval ratings have been dented by the outbreak, but the rapid curtailing of lockdown restrictions in Moscow as well as the parade are designed to boost his popularity ahead of the vote that will end on July 1.
A nationwide coronavirus lockdown was lifted last month but the outbreak, largely on the wane in the Russian capital, is still nowhere near from being over across the country of 144 million. Concerns about safety forced several dozens of Russian cities to scrap their own Second World War parades.
With over 600,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases, Russia has the world’s third-largest number of confirmed infections.
