How the war in Ukraine reduced Putin’s ‘Victory Day’ military parade to a shadow of its former self

In both 2023 and 2024, there was only one tank on display, a Soviet-era T-34

Ever since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, the annual military parade to honour the defeat of Nazi Germany has been a shadow of former years.

The displays of state-of-the-art tanks and intercontinental ballistic missiles in Moscow’s Red Square have gone, while world leaders, even Moscow’s allies, have been wary of standing alongside Putin to watch the procession of military prowess.

The invasion has devastated Ukraine and cost Russia’s military thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

A solitary T-34 tank rolls through Moscow’s Red Square last year (Reuters)

Before the all-out war in Ukraine, Victory Day, celebrated a day later than VE Day, became a parade not just to honour the sacrifices of a previous generation but also to burnish Putin’s image of post-Soviet Russia being restored to its former greatness.

In 2023 and 2024, however, one single tank rolled across Red Square, while a mere 9,000 troops walked behind it, a significant cut compared to previous years. Much of Russia’s more modern equipment was – and still is – in use in Ukraine. The single tank was a Second World War-era T-34, carrying the banner that the Soviet Union used when it defeated Nazi Germany alongside other allies. The model is not in combat use.

In 2023, one of the parade’s most recognisable events, the Immortal Regiment march – during which attendees proceed through Moscow’s Red Square holding portraits of their Second World War veteran relatives – was also scrapped. Experts speculated that this was because of Kremlin concerns that, should people wish to hold up their relatives killed in Ukraine, it would expose a more accurate reflection of the number of Russian losses in the invasion, a figure that Moscow has consistently suppressed.

Analysts believe just 51 vehicles were involved in the 2023 procession. That is a quarter of the 200 pieces of military hardware that rolled through the streets of Moscow in 2020 when Russia marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. In 2022, a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the number of vehicles involved was as high as 131, about the same level as pre-Covid parades.

In 2024, the number of military vehicles increased from 50 to 60 due to a growth in the number of armoured fighting vehicles and armoured cars.

Russian servicemen take part in the Victory Day military parade in Moscow in 2024 (EPA)

Dozens of cities across Russia and occupied Ukraine have also been forced to cancel their events owing to security concerns. The city of Sevastopol, on the southwestern shores of the Crimean peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Putin in 2014, has announced that it will cancel this year’s parade. It is the third year running that it has done this.

In Moscow, where events are too important to Putin’s projection of power to cancel, a complex web of air defences has been erected to protect against possible Ukrainian aerial assaults. Multiple drone strikes in the run-up to Friday’s parade forced airspace closures at all four of the city’s airports.

The Kremlin said there would also be disruptions to mobile phone signals.

Russian fighter jets fly over Red Square during the Victory Day military parade rehearsal earlier this week (AP)

Putin’s conveniently timed call for a temporary truce has been all but dismissed by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who has said Kyiv will not “play games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on 9 May”.

In a video from Independence Square on Thursday morning in the Ukrainian capital, Mr Zelensky described Moscow’s Victory Day as a “parade of bile and lies … and fear”.

But Russian officials are adamant that after several years of smaller parades, this year’s event will be “very large scale”, as Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin's top foreign policy adviser, said recently.

At least 29 foreign leaders, including Chinese president Xi Jinping and Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico, who is the leader of a European Union member, will attend the event, according to Mr Ushakov.

Russian state broadcaster Zvezda even claimed that US secretary of state Marco Rubio might attend, though the Kremlin said it had no information on his plans.

Irrespective of who attends, the possibility of Russia recreating its pre-war military parades is slim. Much of its equipment is either destroyed or in use in Ukraine.