Presiding over the parade, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in his first public address after taking the oath of office last Wednesday said lessons should be drawn from the destructive second World War.

Cautioning against warmongers who had no respect for the “norms of international law”, Medvedev, also said, “the purpose of weapons and military equipment is to give reliable defence to the homeland”.

“The history of world wars show that armed conflicts do not originate on their own. They are instigated by those whose ambitions have an upper hand on the interests of countries and continents, over the interests of millions of people,” he said in an obvious reference to Washington’s policies.

Eight thousand elite troops were lined up at the Red Square for an impressive display of Russian military power, reminiscent of the Communist-era Soviet Union.

Victory Day marks the capitulation by Nazi Germany in WW-II, often referred to as the ‘Great Patriotic War’ in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union.

Recalling the war in which the erstwhile Soviet Union lost over 27 million people fighting Nazi Germany, the President said attempts by any nation to intrude into the affairs of other states needed to be taken seriously.
After a gap of almost 18 years, since the last Soviet parade on November 1997, President Medvedev has revived the display of nuclear missiles in the Victory Day parade, which marks the end of the war in which not a single family in the former Soviet Union remained unaffected.

Serious concerns

“We need to take with extreme seriousness any attempt to sow racial and religious animosity, fan ideology of terror and extremism and intentions of intruding into the affairs of other nations and attempts to revise borders and neglect international laws,” he said.

Flanked by his mentor and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Defence Minister Serdyukov, Medvedev watched the impressive parade as T-90 tanks, Smerch rocket launchers, BTR-80 armoured vehicles and Topol-M mobile nuclear missiles rolled past them at the speed of 18 km per hour.

The parade which started with the units dressed in the uniform of the Red Army of the time of the German Aggression of 1941, completed with impressive flypast by 32 aircrafts including the world’s largest transport plane An-124 Ruslan, Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95MS Bear strategic nuclear bombers.