Parades for Victory Day in the Russian Federation with military equipment will be held in less than a quarter of the administrative centers of 85 regions of the aggressor country, in a third of the capitals there will be no parades at all, and several dozen large cities will hold parades without ground equipment (including Moscow and St. Petersburg), Vestka calculated.
“It happened that way”
The publication wrote that as of the morning of May 6, 25 regional capitals, as well as in occupied Crimea, refused to have parades or simply did not include them in the poster, without giving an explanation. According to Vestka’s calculations, by this time the complete cancellation of parades was announced in:
- Belgorod region;
- Bryansk region;
- Voronezh region;
- Dagestan;
- Ingushetia;
- Kabardino-Balkaria;
- Kaluga region;
- Kalmykia;
- Karelia;
- Krasnodar region;
- Kursk region;
- Leningrad region;
- Lipetsk region;
- Magadan region;
- Moscow region;
- Nenets Autonomous Okrug;
- Nizhny Novgorod region;
- Novgorod region;
- Oryol region;
- Pskov region;
- Rostov region;
- Ryazan region;
- Saratov region;
- Chuvashia;
- Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug;
- occupied Crimea and Sevastopol.
After this, on May 7, the authorities of Udmurtia announced the cancellation of the parade – in Izhevsk, where sirens sounded today due to the danger of UAVs, they decided to “show strength and make a difficult decision” not to bring the military and equipment of the occupying army to the square. “It so happened that today is our turn. On May 9, the traditional Victory Parade will not take place in Izhevsk,” said regional governor Alexander Brechalov.
In Perm, where Ukrainian drones attacked oil industry facilities, the parade was also canceled today.
In another 37 regional capitals, parades will be held either without military equipment – the publication notes that in some regions they have been held this way for several years – or with other restrictions. The most famous example is the capital of the aggressor country.
In Moscow (as well as in St. Petersburg) the parade will be held in a reduced format: without ground equipment, a march of cadet corps, cadets of the Suvorov and Nakhimov schools. At the same time, there will still be aviation in the capital; on May 6, local media and public pages showed part of the rehearsal – six Su-25s (built and put into service back in the 80s of the last century) depicted the tricolor in the sky.
They plan to hold a parade with military equipment (this media concept includes vintage cars and old tanks on the move) only in 18 capitals, including Yaroslavl, Volgograd, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Penza, Ufa, Gorno-Altaisk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
Who will come to Putin?
The media have already noticed that this year many fewer leaders will visit Moscow on May 9 than in the past: the self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko confirmed his visit, and it was previously reported that the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the President of Kyrgyzstan Sadir Japarov did the same. Also on this day, Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico will visit Moscow, but he does not plan to participate in the parade.
The Kremlin today decided to boast of a list of arriving guests; Japarov and Tokayev are not among them, but there is Lukashenko and representatives of non-existent countries.
The Belsat TV channel noticed that the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who, like Japarov and Tokayev, attended parades in Moscow for three years in a row – in 2023, 2024 and 2025, was also not among the guests. Also, the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and the President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov, who also participated in the celebrations in previous years, will not come.
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, who attended the parade in 2023 and 2025, will miss it this year – he explained his refusal to go because he was busy with the election campaign.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev also canceled his trip to Moscow on May 9; the last time he was on Red Square was in 2015. He also explained the refusal by being busy.
Although perhaps there is a different reason…
