The anniversary in the midst of the pandemic: how the Kremlin was preparing for the Victory Parade

The celebration of May 9 this year had to be quarantine, and it was decided to spend the parade in honor of the 75th anniversary of Victory two weeks after removing hard quarantine in Moscow. This was the reason for the heads of some states to abandon the visit. But the authorities still did not save at the celebrations.

We made the main business media in the country, now we are doing better-subscribe to the email newsletter of The Bell!

Celebrations after the cancellation of quarantine

Since the beginning of April, Vladimir Putin was mainly in isolation in his residence in Novo-Ogarevo. During this time, the president personally met with only a few people, including the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin. Precautions were also taken in front of the military parade: for example, veterans who will sit on the rostrum near the president, sent to a two -week isolation in the sanatorium, Bloomberg reported . The head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova said that on the rostrum of veterans who can watch a parade without masks, they would plant two chairs through a social distance. In addition, on the day of the parade, specially prepared and disinfected transport should come for them.

It was decided to draw the parade shortly before the voting on amendments to the Constitution, although the Kremlin considered and the option to appoint both events for one day. But Putin eventually announced : "The Victory Parade is a holy cause, we will not mix him with anything."

World leaders refused to participate in the anniversary parade gradually. Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin reacted to this with understanding, especially since the reason was good-restrictions on coronavirus.

Coronavirus, indeed, was explained by the refusal of Armenian Prime Minister Nikola Pashinyan, as well as President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. The leadership of Israel explained the refusal not only by the virus, but also by the political situation, the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov referred to the 63rd anniversary (the age of the Prophet Muhammad), and the president of Croatia Zoran Milanovich literally the day before-for a breakdown of a personal aircraft.

As a result, the leaders of Abkhazia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Serbia and South Ossetia will be from foreign leaders in the parade.

For the world community last week, Vladimir Putin published a long -promised article in English about the results of World War II. The president promised to write it last year - after the European Parliament adopted the resolution that deeply offended him, in which the USSR was named one of the culprits of the Second World War. In December 2019, Putin spoke several times on this topic - his stories about the Second World War had to listen to the heads of the CIS countries, and businessmen and deputies.

They did not save

Despite the epidemic, they did not save at celebrations. The public procurement portal place agreements for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of Victory in Moscow totaling more than 1.2 billion rubles against 450 million rubles last year or 615 million in 2018.

Purchases went to self -isolation, and right during quarantine - both to the parade and the organization of events in connection with the anniversary. Such a significant difference in price compared to 2019 can be explained by the anniversary, which was planned to celebrate large -scale and attract more attention to it. For example, last year there were almost without expenses for information support, which this year turned out to be significant.

• During the period of self-isolation in early April, the presidential administration announced a competition and immediately concluded a contract with its Kremlin power plant for 117 million rubles for “holding events of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”, including serving the international press center in the arena. There were intended to collect 4 thousand media representatives.
• Another 135 million rubles will be the costs of organizing the press center itself. More than 85 million rubles were allocated to receive foreign delegations. Another 11 million enterprise from the structure of managers “for products supply” received cars for foreign delegations for branding.

• The broadcast of the parade on Red Square, the Immortal Regiment and the festive concert costs 83 million rubles, the broadcast of other main events of the celebration is another 115 million rubles. Also among information expenses is the mailing of postcards for 30 million rubles with congratulations to the president.

• At the beginning of the year, 185 million rubles were received by the Ima-Press agency for the information support of the 75th anniversary of Victory.

• The administration ordered the preparation of Red Square and Vasilievsky descent to the parade for 59 million rubles.

• Another 290 million rubles have been mortgaged from last year to transport the military to participate in the parade. This is traditionally one of the largest articles in the celebration of Victory Day.

What will be shown

The parade will have an extensive historical part, and the deserved T-34 tanks and the Su-100 self-propelled guns will open the technical. In total, more than 200 units of equipment will be held along Red Square, but unlike the 2015 parade, among them there will be no bright machines as the new generation of the T-14 Armata or the BTR BOomerang.

New items will be more interesting to enthusiasts of military equipment. By completely new ones, according to the “spy” pictures , there will be only engineering troops: the TOS-2 heavy flamethrower system on the wheel chassis and the ISDM remote mining system. The coastal missile systems “Ball” (such are deployed in Crimea) and new weapons modules on already familiar chassis are of interest, especially with a 57 mm gun. The newly received by the modernized main tanks of the T-90M “Breakthrough” and the T-80BVM will show.