A parade was held on Red Square in Moscow to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.
Among the units marching in a single formation over the cobblestones of Red Square were representatives of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Member States: the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Tajikistan and the Guard of the Serbian Armed Forces (Serbian Parliament is an observer in the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly).
A total of 14,000 servicemen, 234 units of state-of-the-art equipment and 75 aircraft took part in the Victory Parade.
Vladimir Putin, Chairman of the Collective Security Council, President of the Russian Federation and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, oversaw the parade.
“I congratulate you on the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, a victory that defined the future of the planet for decades to come and forever remained in history as the grandest in its scale, significance and spiritual and moral height,” said Vladimir Putin.
The Supreme Commander-in-Chief said that it was impossible to imagine the future of the world, had the Red Army not risen to defend it, and urged to remember that the Soviet people carried the main burden of the struggle against Nazism. “It was the Soviet people who were able to defeat the absolute evil. It is our duty to protect and defend the honest truth about the Great Patriotic War,” said Vladimir Putin, Chairman of the Collective Security Council and President of the Russian Federation.
The parade in honour of the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory was attended by the heads of CSTO Member States, CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas and Chairman of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly Vyacheslav Volodin. They took seats on the platform together with the war veterans.
On the Soviet-German front, 607 enemy divisions were destroyed. Their banners were thrown at the base of the Mausoleum on June 24, 1945.
more photos