Aviation part of parade cancelled in Moscow and several other Russian cities

The flight programme for the Victory Day parade on Red Square in Moscow and some other Russian cities has been cancelled, with the official reason given as weather conditions.

Source: Russian Kremlin-aligned news outlet Interfax

Details: "The aviation part of the parade has been cancelled," the announcer of Kremlin-aligned Russian TV channel Russia 24 (VGTRK) said on Monday.

Army General Oleg Salyukov, the Chief of Russian Ground Forces, confirmed that the aviation part of the parade was "cancelled due to the weather".

"We have nine airfields involved. It seems that the weather here is more or less the same, but it can be completely different at airfields. I think what we've seen is already impressive," Salyukov explained.

According to the Russian Defence Ministry, 11,000 servicemen took part in the military parade on Red Square on 9 May 2023.

The mechanised column reportedly included 131 pieces of modern military equipment and historical equipment represented by T-34-85, the legendary victory tank, which opened the passage of the mechanised column.

The aviation part of the military parade was also cancelled in St Petersburg.

Aviation equipment did not participate in the Victory Day parade in Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Samara, the press service of the Central Military District (CMD) reports.

Rostov-on-Don was to host the only air parade in the south of Russia, in which more than 40 crews of combat aircraft and helicopters were expected to participate. The press service of the Southern Military District told Interfax that the air part of the parade did not take place in the end; the representative of the press service did not specify the reason.

Background: On 9 May 2023, Putin's regime is holding a Victory Day Parade (on this day, the Russian Federation traditionally celebrates the day of the end of World War II, which it considers the "Great Patriotic War"), which Ukrainian patriots call Russia’s 'Pobedobesie' [literally victory frenzy is a term used to describe the "hyperbolic celebrations" of Victory Day in Russia – ed.] in a state that unleashed a bloody war against the "brotherly" (according to Russian propaganda) country.

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