In Moscow, the preparations for the May 9th Victory Day parade began in the middle of the final week of April. Heavy equipment including mobile ICBM carriers and the latest battle tanks, together with troop formations passing through Red Square, carry on the long tradition established in Soviet times of demonstrating the nation's military might on this day for televised dissemination across the entire expanse of Eurasia.

Meanwhile, preparations have also been made for this year's edition of another Victory Day parade that began just one year ago but is likely to become a still more enduring tradition, the so-called March of the Immortal Regiment in which ordinary citizens carry photographs of their own family heroes from WWII: fathers, grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers who fought on the front or worked at defense positions behind the lines.