Russia stages WWII ‘Victory Day’ parade amid Western boycott
Moscow, May 9
Thousands of Russian troops marched across Red Square, tanks rumbled through the streets and jets screamed overhead on Saturday in a huge military parade marking the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, an event boycotted by Western leaders over Russia’s role in the Ukraine crisis.
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 II victory at Ukraine’s expense.
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. In a sign of closer ties between Russia and China, a column of Chinese troops took part in the events. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was also among those watching.
Dignitaries from India, former Soviet republics and communist-era allies such as Cuba, also attended, underlining Russia’s role as an outcast in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel skipped the parade, as did US President Barack Obama and the French and British leaders, but will attend a wreath-laying ceremony in Moscow on Sunday.
On show was the Armata T-14, Russia’s first new tank to be deployed for 40 years, and soldiers, some in World War II uniforms, filed past under blue skies and bright sunshine. War veterans watched from the grandstand, their chests bristling with medals, while crowds of people choked sidestreets around the Kremlin, cheering and shouting as fighter jets roared over Moscow’s city centre.
Putin has warned that fascism could be on the rise again and is suggesting other countries are rewriting history to play down Moscow’s role in winning the war. “The basic principles of international cooperation have been ignored more often in the last decades. The principles which were hard won by humankind following the global hardships of the war,” he said. — Reuters
