By Dmitry Antonov and Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia marked the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two on Friday with a major military parade that went off without any reports of Ukrainian attacks despite three years of devastating war.
President Vladimir Putin, the longest-serving Kremlin chief since Josef Stalin, stood beside China’s Xi Jinping, several dozen other leaders and Russian veterans on a roofed tribune beside Lenin’s mausoleum as Russian troops marched past.
Putin said Russia would never accept attempts to belittle the Soviet Union’s decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany, but that Moscow also recognised the part played by the Western allies in defeating Adolf Hitler.
“The Soviet Union took upon itself the most ferocious, merciless blows of the enemy,” Putin said.
“We highly appreciate the contribution of the soldiers of the Allied armies, the members of the resistance, the courageous people of China, and all those who fought for a peaceful future to our common struggle.”
Putin made no criticism of the West and referred only in passing to the Ukraine war, Europe’s deadliest since World War Two, but it haunted the celebration.
More than 11,500 troops were lined up in ranks on Red Square, including 1,500 who have fought in Ukraine. Drones – the biggest technological innovation of the war – were paraded for the first time, as well as tanks and intercontinental Yars missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Ukraine attacked Moscow with drones for several days this week, though there were no reports of major attacks on Moscow on Friday amid a 72-hour ceasefire declared by Putin.
The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in World War Two, including many millions in Ukraine, but pushed Nazi forces back to Berlin, where Hitler committed suicide and the red Soviet Victory Banner was raised over the Reichstag in 1945.
Chinese Communist Party historians say China’s casualties in the 1937-1945 Second Sino-Japanese War were 35 million. The Japanese occupation caused the displacement of as many as 100 million Chinese people and significant economic hardship, as well as the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, during which an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 victims were killed.
Moscow and Kyiv do not publish accurate casualty numbers for the war in Ukraine, though U.S. President Donald Trump, who says he wants peace, says hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides have been killed and injured.
MOSCOW PARADE
Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender came into force at 11:01 p.m. on May 8, 1945, marked as “Victory in Europe Day” by Britain, the United States and France. In Moscow it was already May 9, which became the Soviet Union’s “Victory Day” in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45.
For Russians – and for many of the peoples of the former Soviet Union – May 9 is the most sacred date in the calendar, and Putin has sought to use memories of World War Two to unite Russian society, especially amid the war in Ukraine.
The Kremlin says the attendance of Russian allies such as Xi, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and several dozen leaders from the former Soviet Union, Africa, Asia and Latin America shows Russia is not isolated even if Moscow’s former WW2 Western allies want to stay away.
Chinese troops took part in the parade, and Putin shook hands with North Korean officers, praising them for their fighting skill. North Korean troops have helped Russia fight an incursion into its western Kursk region by Ukrainian forces seeking a bargaining chip in any peace talks.
Trump on Thursday called for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, and said that if the truce was not respected then “the U.S. and its partners will impose further sanctions.”
Putin proposed a 72-hour ceasefire that would run on May 8, May 9 and May 10, though Ukraine said Russia had broken the ceasefire, a claim dismissed as absurd by Moscow.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on allies to help it resist Russia, which now controls about a fifth of Ukraine.
“Evil cannot be appeased. It must be fought,” Zelenskiy said, according to the Kyiv Post. He criticised Moscow’s Victory Day parade. “It will be a parade of cynicism. There is just no other way to describe it. A parade of bile and lies.”
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov in Moscow and Guy Faulconbridge in London,Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin, Maxim Rodionov, Anton Kolodazhnyy, Filip Lebedev, Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborn Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
