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Russia
celebrates Victory Day
Moscow
Time, May 11, 2003 |
 World
War II veterans watch a military parade during Victory Day celebrations in
Red Square in Moscow, Friday, May 9, 2003.
MOSCOW
- World War II veterans donned their medals Friday for parades and parties
celebrating the victory over Nazi Germany 58 years ago, while today's
servicemen marched on Red Square's cobblestones in the centerpiece of a
holiday President Vladimir Putin called "great and sacred" for
Russia.
Putin said the "priceless unity" that enabled the allies to
defeat Hitler is needed again for the fight against terrorism. In
Chechnya, an explosion that killed a Russian police officer and wounded
two others served as a grim reminder that war is as much a part of the
country's present as its past.
Soviet and Russian symbolism mixed on Red Square, where the parade began
with servicemen marching to a tune based on music written in the era of
Peter the Great and carrying a red hammer-and-sickle flag that was hoisted
in Berlin by Soviet forces in 1945.
Aging veterans dotted the crowd watching from the side of the square, the
medals on their chests gleaming in the sun.
"We waited a long time for victory," said Alexei Rumyantsev, 80,
an artilleryman during the war whose suit was adorned by some 35 medals.
"I made it from Moscow to Berlin."
Rumyantsev said that as Soviet forces approached the German capital
"it was a meat-grinder."
"We suffered heavy casualties, and at that time we vowed never to
forget those who died. I have not forgotten," he said.
Addressing the parade, Putin honored the veterans and their comrades
killed in the "difficult, terrible, but victorious" war. He said
the Soviet Union defeated a foe that "had no doubt of its victory and
conquered almost all of Europe but was broken - broken here on our
land."
Putin said the world waited too long before opposing Hitler and warned it
must not happen again. "A new, global and very serious peril has
appeared in the world: international terrorism. To counteract it, we must
unite the efforts of all civilized countries," he said.
However, in words apparently meant at least in part as criticism of the
United States and its war on Iraq, Putin said that the fascist powers in
World War II had "claimed for themselves the right to resolve the
fate of the world, the fates of other countries and peoples."
Moscow has sought to counter Washington's growing global power since the
Soviet collapse, and Putin has called the invasion of Iraq unjustified,
saying it set a dangerous precedent by threatening to replace
international law with a doctrine of might makes right.
Before Putin's speech, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov rode around Red
Square in a sleek gray convertible Zil limousine, standing ramrod straight
in a suit as he reviewed lines of troops in crisp uniforms and white
gloves. Units shouted "Hurrah!" as he greeted them.
While major Soviet-era holidays such as May Day and Revolution Day have
become little more than days off work, Victory Day still resonates in a
country that emerged devastated but triumphant from what Russians call the
Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people
in the war.
"For our people, this is the greatest holiday," said Pyotr
Kurevin, 80, a gold-toothed retired general who served in a tank unit
during the war.
After the Red Square parade, thousands of veterans and others marched
under red banners in central Moscow, with Communist leaders calling for
the government's ouster. Many veterans and other elderly Russians are
nostalgic for the Soviet era and support the left-wing opposition.
In the Chechen capital Grozny, an explosive device went off near a stadium
where Victory Day celebrations were to be held, killing one member of a
Russian riot police squad and injuring another, along with a traffic
police officer, Russian news reports said. The stadium event was canceled.
Last year's celebrations were badly marred by a bombing that killed 43
people at a parade in the southern region of Dagestan, which borders
Chechnya.
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