MOSCOW
(AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Victory Day, the
anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, in a ceremony
shorn of its usual military parade and pomp by the coronavirus
pandemic.
In
neighboring Belarus, however, the ceremonies went ahead in full, with
tens of thousands of people in the sort of proximity that has been
almost unseen in the world for months.
Putin
on Saturday laid flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier just
outside the Kremlin walls and gave a short address honoring the valor
and suffering of the Soviet army during the war.
Victory
Day is Russia’s most important secular holiday and this year’s
observance had been expected to be especially large because it is the
75th anniversary, but the Red Square military parade and a mass
procession called The Immortal Regiment were postponed as part of
measures to stifle the spread of the virus.
The only vestige of the conventional show of military might was a flyover of central Moscow by 75 warplanes and helicopters.
The ceremony was the first public appearance in about a month for Putin, who has worked remotely as the virus took hold.
In
his speech, he did not mention the virus — Russia has nearly 200,000
confirmed cases — or how its spread had blocked the observances that
were to be a prestige project for him.
But he promised that full commemorations would take place.
“We
will, as usual, widely and solemnly mark the anniversary date, do it
with dignity, as our duty to those who have suffered, achieved and
accomplished the victory tells us,” he said. “There will be our main
parade on Red Square, and the national march of the Immortal Regiment —
the march of our grateful memory and inextricable, vital, living
communication between generations.”
The
sharply reduced observances this year left a hole in Russia’s civic and
emotional calendar. The war, in which the Soviet Union lost an
estimated 26 million people including 8.5 million soldiers, has become a
fundamental piece of Russian national identity.
Beyond
the stern formalities of the Red Square military parade and smaller
parades in other cities, Russians in recent years have turned out in
huge numbers for the Immortal Regiment processions, when civilians crowd
the streets displaying photographs of relatives who died in the war or
endured it. Russian officials routinely bristle at criticism of the Red
Army’s actions in the war, denouncing the comments as attempts to
“rewrite history.”
An
online substitute for the processions was taking place Saturday and
many people are expected to display relatives’ photos from their
balconies and windows in the evening.
A
full military parade of some 3,000 soldiers was held Saturday in Minsk,
the capital of Belarus, which has not imposed restrictions to block the
virus’ spread despite sharply rising infection figures. Tens of
thousands of spectators, few of them wearing masks, watched the event.
President
Alexander Lukashenko, who has dismissed concerns about the virus as a
“psychosis,” said at the parade that Belarus’ ordeal in the war “is
incomparable with any difficulties of the present day.”
In
one of the final events of the VE Day commemoration in Western Europe,
which took place a day earlier, Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate was
illuminated late Friday.
The words “Thank You” against a blue backdrop were projected onto the monument in Russian, English, French and German.
Earlier
in the day German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier described May 8 as
the day Germany, too, was “liberated” from Nazi dictatorship.
___
Yuras Karmanau in Minsk, Belarus, contributed to this report.
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