MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday told the annual Victory Day parade on Red Square that the horrors of World War II demonstrate the necessity of countries working together to prevent war.
Russia celebrates the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany every May 9 to honor those who fought and died for their country.
“This monstrous tragedy was not able to be prevented primarily because of the connivance of the criminal ideology of racial superiority and due to the lack of unity among the world’s leading nations,” he said.
“To effectively combat terrorism, extremism, neo-Nazism and other threats, consolidation of the entire international community is necessary.”
The Soviet Union is estimated to have lost 26 million people in the war, including 8 million soldiers, and the immense suffering contributes to Victory Day’s status as Russia’s most important secular holiday.
“We feel a piercing blood relationship with a generation of heroes and victors,” Putin said.
Thick clouds forced the cancellation of the traditional dramatic conclusion to the parade — the roaring flyover by scores of military aircraft.
The Red Square parade is a highly ritualized display and marked changes in its order are unusual.
The Defense Ministry had said cloud-seeding planes would be deployed to disperse the overcast skies Tuesday above Moscow. That has been done previously when poor weather threatened. It wasn’t immediately clear if the planes had been deployed.
Parades were held across Russia’s sprawling expanse as well as in the Russia-annexed Crimea Peninsula, but the Red Square parade is the centerpiece of Russia’s observances.
About 10,000 soldiers participated, standing rigidly as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reviewed them while standing in an open-top limousine, then marching out to make way for a display of military vehicles ranging from armored cars to lumbering Topol ICBM launchers.
The parade gave the first public showing of Tor and Pantsir mobile surface-to-air missile that have been adapted for use in Russia’s Arctic forces, their white-and-black winter camouflage standing out amid the olive drab of other war machines.
“The armed forces of Russia are capable of repelling any potential aggression,” Putin said.
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Or we could go talk about how many Stalin had killed during his reign of terror. Estimates of 20-40 million people have been reported. How’s that for International Unity, Puttie?
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-paper-says-20-million-died-as-victims-of-stalin.html
Personally, I’d rather celebrate May 9th as Lost Sock Memorial Day. Yeah. That’s a thing too, and makes about as much sense. Its also Moving To Canada Day. No shit…
Vlad, I’d say that most of the rational world is united in the desire to urinate upon your grave.
Yes, let the world unite under the exciting new ideology of the 21st Century: illiberal oligarchic sham democracy, invented in post-communist Yugoslavia and adopted, perfected and now being exported by the intelligence agencies of the Rodina!
The one thing this motherfucker doesn’t realize that he should is that for most of his tenure, most people in the center, center left and left of the world’s democracies were inclined to ignore his destruction of democracy in Russia and even overlook his meddling, covert ops, subversion and military aggression around the edges of the former Soviet Republics because they were still feeling a sense of fatigue and cynicism about Cold War and didn’t want to start up that mess again.
But now, he’s fucked up. Now he’s managed to rouse them all and make himself the enemy of small “d” democrats across the free world. And that enmity is not going to stop until he’s been toppled.