The morning on Red Square this year was restrained and clear in its register. The Victory Parade passed without military hardware or cadet formations: only infantry columns moved across the cobblestones. This made the march itself more present: its steady rumble, the pauses between commands, the faces of those in the formations, the banners above the square, and the stands along the Kremlin wall.
The parade marked the 81‑st anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet and Russian term for the Eastern Front of the Second World War, 1941−1945). The Russian state flag and the Victory Banner (‘Znamya Pobedy' in Russian, a replica of the red flag raised over the Reichstag in Berlin on 1 May 1945, which has been carried in every Victory Parade since) were carried out to the ‘Sacred War' (‘Svyashchennaya voyna' in Russian, the iconic Soviet wartime song composed on 24 June 1941, the day after the German invasion; it has opened the Victory Parade for decades). For the first time, the parade was commanded by Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces Colonel-General Andrey Mordvichev and received by Defence Minister Andrey Belousov. The veterans, the participants of the Special Military Operation, and foreign guests were on the central stand, alongside Vladimir Putin.
The keynote of the day was succession. More than a thousand servicemen who are participants in the SVO (Special Military Operation) marched across Red Square in the formations. Among them, there were Heroes of Russia and holders of the Order of Courage. For the first time, personnel of the Unmanned Systems Forces, a newly established branch of the armed forces already embedded in today’s military landscape, appeared in the parade formation. The broadcast showed footage of crews operating the Geran (Shahed‑136‑derived loitering munition), the Inokhodets (Orion, a medium-altitude long-endurance reconnaissance and strike UAV), the Molniya, the Lancet (a loitering munition used for precision strikes on armour and equipment), and ZALA drones.
In his address, the President spoke of memory and duty, of the resilience of the Soviet people, of the front and the home front that were one in the years of the Great Patriotic War. ‘We remember the unparalleled steadfastness of soldiers, sailors, and officers, the self-sacrifice of the people’s militia, the partisans, and underground fighters, the enormous efforts of those at home: in science, industry, and on the land. The front and the home front were one,' the President noted. Those words that day fell not only on the past. They sounded alongside the present-day formations: alongside those who had come to the square already carrying their own combat experience, and those who work behind the front line: in factories, hospitals, design bureaus, or volunteer coordination centres.
The 2026 parade was more austere than usual. There was less outward brilliance and more silence between the sounds. The cobblestones, the Kremlin stars, the bearing of the columns, aged hands on the stands, brief glances exchanged before the march began, all of it came together into a single Moscow May day, where memory was not uttered separately from the present.
The close came from the aircraft above the city: the Russkiye Vityazi and Strizhi aerobatic teams (the ‘Russkiye Vityazi’, or ‘Russian Knights’, fly the Su‑27 and Su‑35; the ‘Strizhi’, or ‘Swifts’, fly the MiG‑29; together they form the centrepiece of Russian air display traditions) traced their lines across the sky, and then Su‑25 ground-attack aircraft left a white, blue, and red (these are the colours of the flag of the Russian Federation) trail over Moscow.