On 9 May every year, Russia celebrates Victory Day, putting on a large parade in honour of the country’s victory over Nazi Germany 79 years ago - in what remains an important symbol of the country’s national identity.

Russia only had one tank on display during its Victory Day parade this year.

Every year, Moscow wraps itself in patriotic pageantry for Victory Day, a celebration of its victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

Today marks the 79th anniversary and Mr Putin addressed the parade in the Red Square, talking up his country’s military capabilities in a speech aimed as much at a foreign audience as a domestic one.

Vladimir Putin used his Victory Day speech this year to try and warn Russia’s combat forces were “always ready” but admitted the country was going through a “difficult period”.

    • partial_accumen
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      412 months ago

      Isn’t that one of the T-34 tanks Russia had to buy back from the country of Laos some years ago?

    • Admiral Patrick
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      302 months ago

      I also thought the one, lonely tank seemed familiar (had to check the article date to make sure it was new). Thanks for posting that so I didn’t have to dig up last year’s.

    • HubertManne
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      82 months ago

      ok I did look at your wikipedia page and went to some links for it trying to find this but im sorta curious what was the typical number of tanks before? I know you are unlikely to just know this but worth a try.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 months ago

        Again, Wikipedia , but in 2020 they had ‘around 250 plus vehicles… and 80-strong (aircraft) flypast.’

        The ‘250 plus’ seems to be armored vehicles, they counted ICBM and intermediate missle launchers separately.

        2023 and 2024, no planes either

          • DdCno1
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            142 months ago

            That’s what tends to happen when you send a parade army into a war it was never meant to fight.

    • Hubi
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      42 months ago

      Last year there were a couple of T-34s standing on the sidelines, though they may not have been in working order.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 months ago

          It’s not hard! Just say pretty much anything that’s not deep-throating dictators…

          • @[email protected]
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            182 months ago

            Hell just say NATO is a defensive alliance and they go off the rails. I’ve picked up a few long bans for that alone.

            • @send_me_your_ink
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              2 months ago

              NATO is a defence alliance, the world bank was made to rebuild Europe, the IMF was designed to keep currencies of members stable, and the EU was made to keep France and Germany (and later Italy) from killing each other again in 20 years (believe it or not it’s hard to go to war with your trading partner). Taken together they are the core institutions responsible for the relative safety of the entire western hemisphere in the wake of WW2.

        • @[email protected]
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          52 months ago

          Just exist for a while, if you’re a reasonable person in a comment thread, chances are you’ll get preemptively banned anyway!

  • @[email protected]
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    252 months ago

    Imagine inheriting the corpse of the Soviet Union and having less tanks than literally anyone, much less a nation you’ve invaded out of your weird Tsarist-era port obsession.

  • Flying SquidM
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    252 months ago

    Russia only had one its only remaining functional tank on display during its Victory Day parade this year.

  • katy ✨
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    232 months ago

    they’ve been going through a difficult period since 26 March 2000, vladimir.

  • originalucifer
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    122 months ago

    yeah that conversion to dictatorship is long, hard fight, but apparently worth it. youre almost there, putin!

  • @mindlight
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    2 months ago

    Putin admitting that to times are hard is actually really dangerous. If you don’t acknowledgel there’s a problem, there’s no problem to solve. Purin just acknowledged a problem…

    But anyway… This is yet another sign of the Russian economy booming! Russia is busy figuring out what they’re going to do with all the money, so they didn’t have time to build any tanks!

  • @[email protected]
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    72 months ago

    in a clown suit, next year, putin will be the only attraction and russians will joyfully throw him tomatoes and banana peels : it will be the best military parade ever.