Russia Victory Day parade: Won't allow any threats — Putin

As part of the May 9 festivities, the Kremlin also released video footage of Putin speaking to army commanders a couple of days ago following his swearing-in. 

In the footage, he called for Russia to modernize its military arsenal so it could stay "one step ahead," including by buying in foreign equipment where possible and sidestepping international sanctions where necessary. 

The president said that Russian engineers were working "day and night" to try to update equipment. 

"Modern military technology is changing very fast. If we want to be successful, we always have to be one step ahead," he said.  "Our enemy has quite modern means since the whole Western community is working for our enemy." 

He said Russia would look to the international market for solutions as well, and said he believed that might be relatively easy even amid Western sanctions. 

"We will take, why hide it, what we can find on the international market. Despite the difficulties, we can find things... They have dual, triple and civilian use," he said.

Effectively sanctioning equipment that can have military but also civilian applications, with small drones one such example, tends to be even more difficult than restricting the sale of so-called "single use" military equipment.

May 9 was commemorated in Berlin as usual at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptow Park.

Russia's Ambassador to Germany Sergei Nechaev was among the more prominent visitors on Thursday, as were several members of the Russian Orthodox church, at what was once former East Germany's main war memorial.

Police were on hand, both to check for forbidden symbols or propaganda material among Russian supporters and also to keep the peace between the main event and a counterdemonstration with people carrying Ukrainian and EU flags. 

As of around noon, a police spokesman said there had been no noteworthy incidents or detentions. 

The Russian nationalist biker gang known as the "Night Wolves" are also expected at the monument at some point on Thursday, and their presence has prompted police intervention in recent years. But police said they were expecting the bikers to arrive later in the day.

Berlin is one of the most popular places of residence for Russians or people of Russian heritage in Germany — owing in no small part to its geographical location in the far east, and to the city having been divided during the Cold War.

President Vladimir Putin praised what's become Russia's most important secular holiday during Thursday's speech. 

"The Victory Day unites all generations," he said. "We are going forward relying on our centuries-old traditions and feel confident that together we will ensure a free and secure future of Russia."

Some 9,000 troops took part in the event, and around 1,000 of them had served in Ukraine since the 2022 invasion. 

Missiles and other hardware, plus a notably smaller number of tanks than usual, perhaps suggesting the toll of attrition in Ukraine, were also on display. 

The Russian air force also conducted flyovers of central Moscow, a traditional part of the festivities that was called off because of poor weather in the last couple of years. 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, had argued that Kyiv's defense against Russia was reminiscent of the fight against Nazi Germany in World War II in his nightly video address online.

He listed overnight attacks on Ukraine the previous night and said "this is how Russia marks" the anniversary of Nazism's defeat.

"Eighty years ago, millions of Ukrainians fought to defeat Nazism forever," he said. "But today, Ukrainians are once again standing against the evil that has been reborn, has come back and wants to destroy us again."

Vladimir Putin often refers to the conflict in Ukraine as a bid to "denazify" the government in Kyiv.

For a time in post-Soviet Russia, Western leaders would be a common sight at the May 9 commemorations, just as Putin would often attend May 8 events. 

That has not been the case at the latest since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, if not before.

But leading politicians from several countries were in Moscow on Thursday for the event, particularly but not only from the former Soviet sphere.

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba, Laos and Guinea-Bissau all sent delegations. 

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was also expected, until he said while in Moscow on Wednesday that he would not be attending.

Pashinyan and Armenia's stance towards Russia has frayed since rival Azerbaijan successfully took control of the disputed territory of Nagrono-Karabakh in two stages of conflict in recent years.

Russia marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II in Europe a day later than Western capitals, and Kyiv in the meantime.

That's because the German surrender formally and intentionally came into force at 11:01 p.m. in Berlin on May 8, or by extension at one minute past midnight on May 9 in Moscow, one hour ahead. 

The plan at the time was to give the then-Soviet Union its own "Victory Day," as it is still known in Russia, to commemorate its victory over Nazi Germany. 

The day is a national holiday and the legacy of the conflict and the Soviet contribution to it remains as mythologized and revered in Putin's Russia as it was during the Soviet era. 

Ukraine, meanwhile, many of whose nationals would have fought with the Red Army at the time, changed its official memorial day from May 9 to May 8 last year.

Soviet forces played a key role in halting the Nazis' advance through Europe, particularly in terms of the losses inflicted on the German military on the Eastern Front, at a far greater human cost to Soviet ranks. 

However, most historians would concur that the three largest military powers in the Allies — the Soviets, the US and the soon-to-dissolve British Empire — were all indispensable parts of the puzzle in ensuring Germany's defeat.

President Vladimir Putin accused the West of risking a global conflict with its response to the invasion of Ukraine during his speech to soldiers at the parade. 

He said that "arrogant" leaders in the West had forgotten the role the Soviet Union had played in World War II. He also accused them of stoking conflicts throughout the world. 

"Russia will do everything to prevent a global clash. But at the same time, we will not allow anyone to threaten us," Putin said, before alluding to the country's nuclear capabilities. "Our strategic forces are always in a state of combat readiness."

He said Russia was currently going through a "difficult, crucial period," and that its fate and future "depends on each of us." 

Putin often portrays the clash with the West amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine as part of a wider process of Western countries provoking Russia, as he would phrase it, by encroaching on its sphere of influence in eastern Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The president, this week sworn in for another term, also hailed the bravery of troops engaged in Ukraine and called for a minute's silence towards the end of his address.