MOSCOW: Russia marked the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two on Friday with a parade attended by China’s Xi Jinping amid tight security to guard against Ukrainian attacks after three years of devastating war.

President Vladimir Putin, the longest-serving Kremlin chief since Josef Stalin, stood beside Xi, several dozen other leaders and Russian veterans on a roofed tribune beside Vladimir Lenin’s mausoleum on Red Square as Russian troops marched past.

Putin said Russia would never accept attempts to belittle the Soviet Union’s decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany, but that Moscow also recognised the part played by the Western allies in defeating Adolf Hitler.

“The Soviet Union took upon itself the most ferocious, merciless blows of the enemy,” Putin said. “We shall always remember that the opening of the Second Front in Europe after the decisive battles on the territory of the Soviet Union brought victory closer.”

Kyiv says Moscow has ‘no right to monopolise’ history

“We highly appreciate the contribution of the soldiers of the Allied armies, the members of the resistance, the courageous people of China, and all those who fought for a peaceful future to our common struggle.”

However, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga on Friday said Putin was wrong to monopolise victory in World War II, after the Kremlin leader rallied support for his invasion of Ukraine at the parade in Moscow. “We are jointly celebrating the Day of Europe, while a parade is taking place in the Kremlin. And Putin — he may consider himself the so-called victor, but he has no right to monopolise victory,” Sybiga said.

The war in Ukraine, Europe’s deadliest since World War Two, haunts the celebration. Some 1,500 of the 11,000 troops on Red Square have fought in Ukraine and drones — the biggest technological innovation of the war — were due to be paraded for the first time.

Ukraine attacked Moscow with drones for several days this week, though there were no reports of major attacks on Russia on Friday amid a 72-hour ceasefire declared by Putin.

Moscow and Kyiv do not publish accurate casualty numbers for the war in Ukraine, though US President Donald Trump, who says he wants peace, says hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides have been killed and injured.

The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in World War Two, including many millions in Ukraine, but pushed Nazi forces back to

Berlin, where Hitler committed suicide and the red Soviet Victory Banner was raised over the Reichstag in 1945.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2025