Putin Oversees Red Square Parade to Mark Victory

Date: 24 June 2020 - 21:32

News ID: ۷۹۸۸۴

MOSCOW (Dispatches) -- Columns of tanks and troops paraded through Red Square on Wednesday as President Vladimir Putin oversees grand World War II commemorations to stir up patriotic fervor amid rising standoff with the West.
Forced to postpone the country’s traditional May 9 Victory Day celebrations by the coronavirus pandemic, Putin rescheduled the parade for just a week ahead of a July 1 public vote on constitutional reforms.
Among other changes, the reforms Putin proposed earlier this year would reset the presidential term-limit clock to zero, allowing him to potentially stay in the Kremlin until 2036.
He announced the new dates for the parade and the vote -- initially planned for April -- last month due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The rate of new infections has fallen in recent weeks and cities including Moscow have lifted anti-virus lockdowns.
This year’s parade, marking 75 years since the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany, included some 13,000 troops from 13 countries, as well as vintage equipment and the latest military hardware showing off Russia’s fighting capabilities.
More than 20 pieces of new equipment were put on show for the first time including Tosochka flame-throwers, T-90M tanks and Buk-M3 surface-to-air missile systems.
Officials say the date was chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the first post-war parade on Red Square, which saw Soviet troops throw down Nazi standards in front of the Lenin mausoleum on June 24, 1945.
In his two decades in office, Putin has harnessed the legacy of the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II to boost patriotic sentiment.
Ahead of the parade, he slammed the West for "insulting Russia” by playing down the USSR’s role in winning the war.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron had been scheduled before the pandemic to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Kremlin chief at the parade, in a testament to Russia’s growing international influence under Putin.
The Russian president on Wednesday was flanked by the heads of breakaway statelets in the former Soviet Union and leaders of close allies like Serbia and Belarus.
With more than 8,000 recorded fatalities and around 600,000 confirmed infections, Russia has the third-largest coronavirus caseload in the world after the United States and Brazil.