Few face masks could be seen in Red Square as Vladimir Putin hosted foreign leaders and war veterans, now in their 90s, at the country’s Victory Day military parade, which came as the number of coronavirus cases in Russia surpassed 600,000.
Thousands of Muscovites ignored calls to stay home and crowded along Tverskaya Street and near the Kremlin to see tanks, artillery pieces, and ICBMs make their way through Moscow and on to Red Square, where the parade marked the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
The president of Kyrgyzstan, who had travelled to Moscow for the parade, said he did not attend because two members of his delegation tested positive for Covid-19.
As refurbished Soviet T-34 tanks made their way onto the square, Russian medical officials announced they had counted 7,176 new cases of coronavirus, including 811 in Moscow, bringing the country’s total to 606,881 cases. Officially, 154 people were reported to have died in the last day from the disease.
More than 20 cities across Russia cancelled their festivities, saying they were concerned for the health of veterans and the public. But key cities like Moscow have pushed forward, even appearing to curtail coronavirus restrictions to prepare for the parade. Large gatherings are still banned for fear of spreading the disease.
On Red Square, Kremlin officials said they had tested all those attending for Covid-19. More than 80 veterans, some who flanked Putin on the parade bleachers, had been quarantined for two weeks in a Moscow region sanatorium before the parade.
Spectators were separated by empty seats but otherwise the parade differed little from the outsize display of Russian military power that it has become in recent decades.
In a speech, Putin did not mention coronavirus and delivered largely conciliatory remarks that only nodded at his sharper accusations published in English earlier this week, that the west was rewriting the history of the war.
“Our debt is to remember… that the Soviet people bore the brunt of the struggle against Nazism,” Putin said in a speech, as a veteran of the war pumped his fist in the background.
“This is the main, pure, unaltered truth about the war. We must protect and defend it, pass it on to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Today’s military parade is in honour of this sacred truth, in honour of the outstanding generation of victors who determined the outcome of the entire second world war.”
Putin, who has largely appeared on television from a windowless room panned as his “bunker” since April, shook hands with war veterans and met friendly leaders from mainly ex-Soviet countries, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Moldova, and Uzbekistan, as well as Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
He was forced to delay the parade from 9 May by more than a month due to the coronavirus epidemic, which has upended a busy political season in Russia during which Putin is seeking to change the constitution to allow himself to stay in the Kremlin until 2036, if he so chooses.
Online voting for the referendum on the plan will begin in less than 24 hours and the Kremlin is hoping for a boost from the patriotic spectacle, which featured an air force flyover and soldiers dressed in the replica uniforms from the second world war.
Key guests like China’s Xi Jinping and France’s Emmanuel Macron had cancelled, downgrading the event from the showcase of global diplomacy that the Kremlin hoped the anniversary to be.
But those who made the trip were enthusiastic. The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, who was sharply criticised for holding his own 9 May parade despite the coronavirus epidemic, was joined on the parade bleachers by his two sons. The Serbian leader, Alexandar Vučić, thumped his chest as a delegation of soldiers marched by the podium.
(August 9, 1999) Acting prime minister
Boris Yeltsin sacks his cabinet and appoints Putin, a political neophyte who headed the main successor to the KGB, as his acting prime minister and heir apparent.
(December 31, 1999) Acting president
Yeltsin stuns Russia and the world by using his traditional new year message to announce his resignation and hand his sweeping powers, including the nuclear suitcase, to Putin.
(March 23, 2000) President (first term)
Putin wins a surprisingly narrow majority in his first presidential election, taking 53% of the vote and avoiding a second round run-off.
(March 14, 2004) President (second term)
Putin consolidates his centralised control of power by cruising to a second term as president with 71% of the vote, having limited press access to his opponents and harassing their campaigns.
(May 8, 2008) Prime minister
Putin is prevented by the constitution from running for a third term as president. The First deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev is elected in his stead. One of his earliest moves is to appoint Putin as prime minister, leaving little doubt that the two men plan, at the very least, to run Russia in tandem.
(March 4, 2012) President (third term)
Amid widespread allegations of vote-rigging, Putin returns to the role of president, taking 63.6%. Medvedev becomes his prime minister. "Putin has named himself the emperor of Russia for the next 12 years," says protest leader Alexei Navalny.
(March 18, 2018) President (fourth term)
Putin is re-elected until 2024 with 77% of the vote, amid high tensions between London and Moscow over the Salisbury nerve agent attack. Opposition activists highlight a number of cases of vote-rigging and statistical anomalies.
(June 25, 2020)
Russia holds a yes/no referendum on various topics including a proposal to amend the constitution to allow Putin to seek another two terms in the Kremlin.
Under Putin, the parade has become the country’s main political holiday and taken on a religious aura.
Earlier this week, Putin attended the opening of a new military cathedral run by Russia’s armed forces that is partially dedicated to the memory of the war.
The stairs have been moulded from scrap metal salvaged from Nazi tanks and acquired objects include Hitler’s peaked cap, according to the defence ministry. Plans to mount a mosaic featuring images of Putin and other senior Russian political and military officials were scrapped after images of the mosaic were leaked.
