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More than 14,000 military servicemen took part in the parade, including teachers and students from military academies, servicemen from units in the Western Military District, the Paratroopers Regiment, Marines Brigade, and the Interior Ministry Troops Rapid Reaction Division. Music for the parade was performed by the Combined Military Orchestra.

Following the troops’ procession, the parade through Red Square continued with military hardware, including armoured vehicles, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, mobile launchers, mobile missile systems, air defence systems, and other types of Russia’s best achievements in military hardware. A flyover by combat-transport helicopters carrying the flags of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces, and the separate Army, Navy and Air Force flags completed the parade.

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Speech at the military parade marking the 67^th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Citizens of Russia!

Veterans!

Comrade soldiers and sailors, sergeants and warrant officers, midshipmen and corporals!

Comrade officers, generals and admirals!

Congratulations on Victory Day!

Congratulations on this day of our people’s triumph and glory!

This is our day of memory, our day of pride and mourning, the day that unites everyone in Russia.

Sixty-seven years ago, we defeated the terrible and cynical force that was Nazism. We must never forget how that force was born and grew stronger and ever more audacious before the world’s very eyes. We must never forget how barbarians planned the destruction of entire peoples and sought to dictate the destinies of whole countries and continents.

We must be open in recognising that the Nazis’ aggressive plans did not meet with timely collective resistance and that the divisions between countries and their mutual suspicion and ideological disputes prevented them from being able to stop World War II.

Humanity paid a terrible cost for this, but in the end, the inevitable happened and responsibility and the collective determination to vanquish this evil finally triumphed. Countries rose in common coalition against the Nazi enemy. Today, we pay tribute to the countries that made an enormous contribution to defeating our common ruthless enemy.

It is our common duty to remember why the war began and to analyse its lessons, which remain just as relevant today. I stress today that strict respect for international law, state sovereignty and the independent choice of each people is one of the crucial guarantees for ensuring that the tragedy of World War II never happens again.

Russia is consistent in its policy of strengthening security in the world. We have a great moral right in taking this principled and firm stand, because it was our country that bore the brunt of the Nazi attack, met it with heroic resistance, traversed immense hardships, determined the war’s outcome, routed the enemy and liberated the world’s peoples. This victory provides a strong foundation for our young generations too, who must know and remember that they are the successors of victors, of true soldiers of freedom. 

Veterans, you stood shoulder to shoulder throughout this war, united as brothers, enduring hardships, deprivation and torment such as seem more than man can bear. But you did not give in to the enemy and became those who truly made victory with your own hands. You took strength in Russia’s glorious military traditions and in the true values that shone so brightly during those times of great trial, and you prove once more that victory is won not only through strength of arms, but through strength of will, unity and faith.

The Great Patriotic War is part of history now, but your courage and your ability to love and defend your motherland will never fade and will always remain the yardstick of moral sense, patriotism and duty for the generations to come. Today too, your descendants follow the Victory Banner and parade with pride across legendary Red Square, and they do so in a sign of deepest respect to those who gave them this great day, those who remained forever on the battlefields and will never celebrate this most sacred of holidays together with us here.

We will always remain true to your great deed. This is the guarantee of our future, and we will do everything to ensure that it is a safe and peaceful future.

Glory to the victorious people! Congratulations! Congratulations on Victory Day! Glory to Russia! Hurrah!