LEADERS from across the globe joined Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow today to mark the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Mr Putin presided over a massive parade of tanks, missiles and troops through Red Square on Russia’s most important secular holiday.

The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in the “Great Patriotic War” from 1941 to 1945. 

Some in the West have sought to erase the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazism by removing references to the Red Army from Victory in Europe celebrations held elsewhere on the continent.

The Moscow Bureau for Human Rights has also recorded at least 300 cases of monuments to Soviet soldiers in European Union countries being dismantled since 2022.

The Moscow parade began with a march by the banner group of the Preobrazhensky Regiment Honour Guards unit carrying the Russian national flag and the legendary Victory Banner across Red Square. 

The Victory Banner was raised over the Reichstag in Berlin in May 1945 by soldiers of the 150th Idritskaya Rifle Division.

Mr Putin, war veterans, guests and an array of foreign leaders watched today’s parade from the central reviewing stand in Red Square.

Despite EU attempts to organise a boycott of the event, more than two dozen national leaders came to Moscow for the occasion.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was the only EU state leader to have travelled to Moscow. While flying to Moscow on Thursday, he was forced to take a detour of thousands of miles after Lithuania and other Baltic nations closed their airspace in protest at his attendance.

Chinese President Xi Jinping sat next to Mr Putin during the ceremony and nearby were Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Burkina Faso’s leader Ibrahim Traore, President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Vietnamese Communist Party general secretary To Lam and the leaders of a number of former Soviet states, including Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

When he arrived in the Russian capital on Wednesday, Mr Xi drew parallels between the modern-day United States’ “hegemony” and the “arrogant fascist forces” of 80 years ago.

He added that China and Russia would continue to work together to help create “an equal, balanced multipolar world and inclusive, accessible economic globalisation.” 

Prior to his arrival, the Chinese president wrote an article saying that “the just forces of the world, including China and the Soviet Union, fought bravely and defeated the arrogant fascist forces side by side.

“Eighty years later, unilateralism, hegemony and bullying are extremely harmful. Humanity is once again at the crossroads.”

Some observers have described the gathering as one of the most important assembly of global majority leaders in recent times and a direct snub to the US-led Western powers.

“It’s again showing that Russia is not isolated, that Russia is seen as a very legitimate, victorious nation that is among victors in World War II,” said Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre director Alexander Gabuev.

He added that Mr Fico’s attendance showed that “Russia has allies even within the Western camp,” adding that it marked a major public relations victory for Mr Putin.

Before the Russian president’s address and a one-minute silence, some 11,000 troops filed through Red Square, including some who had fought in Ukraine.

There were also 180 military vehicles on display, with tanks, armoured infantry vehicles and huge Yars nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles launchers among them.

Mr Putin told the crowd that Russia “was and will be an indestructible barrier against Nazism, Russophobia and anti-semitism.”

Military parades and other festivities were also held in scores of other cities across Russia.