Victory Day parade held on Moscow’s Red Square
By IANSSunday, May 9, 2010
Moscow, May 9 (IANS/RIA Novosti) A military parade involving over 10,000 personnel and 150 tracked and wheeled military vehicles, as well as 127 aircraft overhead, was staged Sunday on Moscow’s Red Square to celebrate Victory Day.
Victory Day marks the final surrender by Nazi Germany to the U.S.S.R. in World War II, often referred to as the Great Patriotic War in Russia and other states in the former Soviet Union.
Moscow’s Military District Commander, Col. Gen. Valery Gerasimov, led the parade which began at 10.00 a.m.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev addressed the participants and guests at the beginning of the parade.
“This war made us a strong nation… We won not simply a military victory but also a moral victory,” Medvedev said.
The parade, which was accompanied by over 50 Russian and foreign military orchestras with 1,200 musicians, was divided into three parts - a marchpast, involving military personnel, followed by sophisticated hardware and then a flyover by combat aircraft.
US, British, Polish and French troops participated alongside the Russian military units in the parade for the first time in history.
The Russian president called for united international efforts to face new challenges and global threats and to prevent tragedies similar to World War II, which took lives of an estimated 60 million people around the world.
“The joint march symbolizes our readiness to defend peace, to prevent the revision of the results of the war, to prevent new tragedies,” Medvedev said.
Over 102,000 military servicemen and about 200,000 World War II veterans across Russia took part in the festivities dedicated to the 65th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany.
The first Victory Parade was held on Red Square June 24, 1945 on the order of the then Supreme Commander-in-Chief Joseph Stalin.
According to latest studies, the total casualties of the Soviet Union, both soldiers and civilians, were 26.6 million people — of these, an estimated 8,668,400 were soldiers.
–IANS/RIA Novosti
