On the Red Square in Moscow tomorrow, to attend the Victory parade alongside Vladimir Putin, who built his political speech on the feast of May 9, there will be the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym Jomart Tokayev, the president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov , and the premier of Armenia, Nikol Pashynian. Putin also tried to co-opt the president of Turkmenistan, Serdar Berdimuhamedow with a phone call this morning. But the official Ashgabat newspaper “Neutral Turkmenistan” which reported the news of the talks between the two presidents did not specify whether the invitation was accepted or not. The same goes for the President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, also invited by Putin. As for the President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, his presence (or absence) has not yet been officially confirmed.
As Tokayev’s spokesman Ruslan Zheldibai explained. the Kazakh leader, already arriving in Russia this evening, extends his program beyond the parade in Red Square, the anniversary of the victory over the Nazis at the end of the Great Patriotic War which this year clashes with Russia’s difficulty in the war against Ukraine which the Kremlin has tried in vain in recent months to present as a new war against Nazism. Tokayev will also visit the Soviet Soldier Memorial in Rzhev, Tver Region, and a mass grave in the Moscow Region where one of his uncles was buried after serving in the war.
Tomorrow’s celebrations have been reduced to the bone, after last week’s drone attack on the Kremlin but also after Russia’s difficulties on the front in Ukraine. Military parades have been canceled in more than 20 cities across the country, including in the distant Siberian front. Throughout Russia, the parades of the Regiment of the Immortals were then cancelled, the grassroots event appropriated by the Kremlin, in which ordinary citizens parade with images of their loved ones, veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Even if Dmitry Peskov underlined the risk of terrorism, the decision to stop the parade seems to be linked to the authorities’ fear that this year photos of the dead in the ongoing war will be exhibited.
“There is a nervousness that I have never seen before. But Victory Day must go ahead, even if there are no other options,” a Moscow municipality official explained to the Guardian. The decision to cancel the popular parade was was taken some time ago at a meeting chaired by the Kremlin’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Sergei Kiriyenko. As a precautionary measure taken “by the organizers of this initiative”. Decision, added Dmitry Peskov, “understandable, given that we are dealing with a state that is in fact a sponsor of terrorism. It is better to take precautions”. Red Square has been closed for two weeks in anticipation of tomorrow’s party.
“There are numerous ways in which one can participate indirectly in this action. Citizens will be able to celebrate this holiday in the most extensive way in one way or another”, he explained. So much so that on Friday Putin discussed organizing the event with his National Security Council.
The co-chair of the All-Russian civil patriotic movement “Regiment of Immortals of Russia”, MP Elena Tsunaeva, announced to Tass this morning that there would be no traditional parade, an idea from 2011 by three Tomsk journalists. Since 2015, the parade has also been held in Moscow, with the participation of President Putin as well. The Russians were therefore invited to publish photos of their veterans of the Great War on social media, or to pin the photos on their clothes, on their cars.
Meanwhile, conscripts are expected to parade in tomorrow’s parades in Russian cities where the event has been confirmed, away from Moscow cameras, given the deployment of professional military personnel to Ukraine. “With all ground forces engaged in Ukraine, some regions will need to exercise creativity to use instructors and other military personnel to give a semblance of normalcy,” said Dara Massicot, an analyst at the Rand Corporation.
Also last year the May 9 Parade was held in a minor key. Due to unexplained “weather conditions”, in Moscow as in other cities of the country, the display of military aircraft which in the tests of the previous days had tried a flight formation in the shape of the letter Z, symbol of the special military operation, had been cancelled. . As for the foreign guests, the Tass agency had spoken generically of “envoys and important diplomats from some foreign countries”, including the diplomatic staff of mainly Middle Eastern and African countries. The only two ambassadors named were from Pakistan and Türkiye. However, the parade of the Regiment took place last year. In 2021, the Kremlin had admitted that there would be no foreign leaders, as the anniversary “was not round”.
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