The Victory Day parade in Moscow's Red Square this year felt like a shadow of the grand spectacles that have long defined Russia's most cherished national celebration. Traditionally held on May 9 to mark the Soviet Union's triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II, the celebration has for years served not merely as a ceremonial occasion but as a carefully choreographed show of Russian military might and geopolitical swagger. Something felt different about it this time. The grand pageantry that Russians and the world have come to expect every year simply did not materialise.
The most jarring absence was the hardware. For the first time in nearly two decades, the tanks, the rocket launchers and the intercontinental ballistic missiles were nowhere to be seen. Instead, giant screens had been erected around the square, showing footage of Russian military equipment operating in Ukraine or being tested at ranges far from the capital. Fighter jets still flew overhead trailing the red, white and blue of the Russian flag, but on the ground there was an emptiness. The parade had always been designed to project dominance. This year it projected something closer to caution.
The reasoning behind these changes was not difficult to find. Ukrainian drones have spent the past year reaching ever deeper into Russian territory, striking oil facilities, military airfields and key infrastructure hundreds of kilometres from the front lines. In the days leading up to the parade, one drone struck an upmarket residential complex in Moscow itself. The Kremlin made no attempt to hide its concern, openly acknowledging that the "current operational situation" had forced authorities to rethink the entire event. Mobile internet services across parts of Moscow were shut down to hamper drone navigation systems. Vast security cordons sealed off Red Square and the surrounding streets.
There was a painful irony in all of this. Victory Day exists to project an image of national strength and unshakeable resolve. Yet the lengths to which the Kremlin went simply to hold the ceremony without incident told a rather different story. A successful drone strike during the parade would have been catastrophic, perhaps not so much in physical terms but in what it would have said to the world: that Moscow, the heart of the Russian state, is no longer beyond reach.
The geopolitical backdrop gave the occasion an added layer of awkwardness. The parade took place during a brief three-day ceasefire brokered by Donald Trump, who presented it as a possible opening towards peace. In Kyiv, however, President Volodymyr Zelensky chose to mark the occasion differently. He issued a tongue-in-cheek decree "permitting" Russia to celebrate Victory Day undisturbed, complete with the exact coordinates of Red Square and a declaration that the area was temporarily off-limits to Ukrainian strikes. Russian officials called it a silly joke. But the point landed. The country that launched a full-scale invasion expecting a swift and decisive victory now appears to be relying on Ukrainian goodwill to hold its most sacred annual ceremony in peace.
Marching alongside Russian troops in Red Square was a contingent of North Korean soldiers, an unprecedented sight that spoke volumes about how Russia's international standing has shifted. Pyongyang is believed to have sent somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 troops to support Russian operations in Ukraine. Their presence at the parade was a public acknowledgement of a partnership that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. Meanwhile, the guest list of foreign dignitaries had thinned considerably. Where Xi Jinping had stood beside Putin last year, this time Moscow welcomed mainly representatives from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Laos. The broader world had quietly stayed away.
Officials also let slip, perhaps without fully realising what they were admitting, that military equipment was absent because it was needed at the front. The war in Ukraine has now lasted longer than the entire Soviet campaign against Nazi Germany, and Western estimates suggest that Russian casualties, killed and wounded combined, have exceeded one million.
The cracks are spreading. Inflation is biting, sanctions are squeezing and the budget deficit is growing. Beneath the surface of official patriotism, frustration is quietly building. Yesterday’s Victory Day parade was meant to reassure. Instead, it exposed the mounting cost of a war that has no end in sight, and a government increasingly consumed by the effort simply to hold things together.