Russia\u2019s grand Victory Day parade in Moscow on Thursday marking the World War II defeat of Nazi Germany was noticeably diminished compared to previous years\u2019 events, according to an assessment by the UK\u2019s Ministry of Defence.<\/p>\n
In its latest intelligence update, the British military noted that parades had been cancelled in 24 Russian cities this year, \u201cprimarily those in regions bordering Ukraine likely owing to poor security.\u201d This is up from 21 cancelled parades in 2023.<\/p>\n
The MoD said that of the 30 units on parade in Red Square, \u201cover two-thirds were sourced from military academies, youth and veteran groups\u201d rather than active duty forces. Domestic security and emergency services groups also made up a larger contingent than normal.<\/p>\n
In total, around 9,000 military cadets, veterans and service personnel took part \u2013 more than the 8,000 participants last year but well below the over 11,000 in Russia\u2019s 2021 Victory Day parade before the full-scale Ukraine invasion.<\/p>\n
Perhaps most strikingly, the analysts said there was an \u201cabsence of heavy armoured vehicles or tracked military vehicles\u201d in this year\u2019s parade. Only a single main battle tank was present, in contrast to 2020 when some 20 tanks rolled through Red Square.<\/p>\n
The reduced scale and makeup of the parade \u201clikely reflected lingering systemic mobilisation challenges and continued high levels of commitment of Russian troops in Ukraine,\u201d the MoD assessment stated.<\/p>\n
The Victory Day commemorations are one of Russia\u2019s most prestigious annual public events. The diminished showcase of military hardware and personnel underscores the strains on Moscow\u2019s armed forces from over a year of intense fighting and losses in Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Victory Day parades had been cancelled in 24 Russian cities this year, \u201cprimarily those in regions bordering Ukraine likely owing to poor security.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":406,"featured_media":16600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[10379,281,78,329,215,10283],"class_list":["post-16599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","tag-british-military","tag-moscow","tag-russia","tag-uk","tag-ukraine","tag-victory-day"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}