North Korean Troops, Slovakia’s prime minister, and straight-to-home-video action star Steven Seagal – Moscow’s 2025 Victory Day parade on Friday kicked off with a peculiar mix of attendees.
Moscow’s 80th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in Europe was attended by an array of foreign leaders amid heightened security threats in Moscow. The event involved parades by over 10,000 Russian troops (in addition to a smaller number of Chinese and North Korean troops), as well as displays of military hardware including tanks, missiles and attack drones.
In addition to international leaders and military officials, Russian President Vladimir Putin was surrounded by decorated Soviet WWII veterans, and veterans and participants of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the so-called “Special Military Operation” in Russia.
But what made it special?
Foreign leaders
This parade was larger than parades in 2023 and 2024, which had been smaller due to security concerns, Russian military limitations on available hardware, and a greater stigmatization of Putin after he launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The attendance of high-profile foreign leaders may signal to the world that Russia’s diplomatic isolation is ending.
Notable foreign leaders in attendance included Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the heads of Cuba, Belarus, Venezuela, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Egypt, among others.
Other BRICS leaders, including the heads of India and South Africa, declined invitations to attend.
Former Hollywood actor Steven Seagal, whose last blockbuster came out in 2001 but later befriended Putin and became a Russian citizen, was seen at the parade seated next to the “Night Wolves,” the pro-Kremlin motorcycle gang known for aiding Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Perhaps most controversially was the attendance of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, the sole head of an EU nation, who had been warned against attending by Brussels. Fico’s flight was forced to change its planned route after being denied entry into Lithuania’s airspace on Thursday.
Ukraine had launched several successful drone attacks on Moscow earlier this week, grounding flights and stranding thousands of passengers, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky writing that Ukraine could not guarantee the security of foreign leaders in Russia if they attended – that it is Moscow’s job to do so if they so choose to attend.
Show of force
In addition to Russian forces and veterans, the parade also featured a Chinese ceremonial detachment and a group of North Korean troops who had fought for Russia.
Russia displayed the Iskander ballistic missile, new attack drones, and even the Yars nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile this year on the Red Square, according to photos of the parade shared by the Washington Post.
In addition to missiles and drones, Moscow also displayed tanks, armored personnel carriers, and a flyover of Su-25 military jets.
This is a dramatic increase compared to the 2023 May 9 parade, which featured one vintage T-34 tank, and no aviation or infantry fighting vehicles, the latter ostensibly could not be spared from the front.
Battles over memory
The rest of Europe commemorated Victory in Europe Day (“VE” day) on Thursday, May 8. The difference in dates is rooted in the Soviet refusal to accept the initial peace treaty signed in Reims, France, and insistence on signing in Berlin on May 9, 1945.
The celebration of the May 9 holiday has become an increasingly important foundation of Russian identity and renewed militarism, which has grown under Putin.
In 2014, Russian propaganda had co-opted WWII as a comparison for its war in Ukraine, with slogans like “We can Repeat” and “To Washington” – a reference to the famous “To Berlin” Soviet slogan often painted on tanks and bombs during WWII.
Russian narratives of their role in the Allied victory have become increasingly accepted in the West, with Russian assertions that more than 20 million Soviet nationals died during the war. This Russian messaging glosses over the fact that as many as 10 million of the deaths were Ukrainians.
Still, Western leaders have sought to counter this Russian narrative by emphasizing its contribution to the war effort. In June 2024, the Allies commemorated the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France, with then-US President Joe Biden and other world leaders in attendance.
US President Donald Trump, who often strikes a sympathetic tone with Putin, did not pass up the opportunity to post on his social media about the US contribution to the allied victory:
“Many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day,” Trump wrote Friday morning, “but we did more than any other country, by far, in producing a victorious result in World War II.”
The otherwise uneventful annual parade will be seen as a victory for Putin in his effort to project strength, unity and international allies in the fourth year of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia proposed a 72-hour ceasefire to commemorate the Victory Day events, but Ukraine said that they have repeatedly violated the terms of the ceasefire.
Kyiv has reaffirmed its openness to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, a plan supported by most of its European allies and the US.