Russia's May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow will not include a column of military equipment for the first time since 1945, the Defense Ministry confirmed this weekend, citing "the current operational situation." [1] Marching troops and a flyover of Su-25 jets remain on the program; the cadets traditionally drawn from the regional military schools have been withdrawn from the procession on security grounds. [2] DW News reports the equipment column has been replaced with a smaller air segment because Ukrainian deep-strike capability now reaches Moscow within thirty minutes of launch. [3]

The substantive change is the equipment. Through every Soviet decade and through the Putin years, the equipment column was the parade. T-14 tanks, S-400 launchers, Yars ICBMs on twelve-axle transporters — the parade was the equipment, and the broadcast was the equipment. [1] The marching troops were a frame for the hardware. The 2026 parade is a frame for nothing. Meduza reports the entire event will run under an hour with only "a few hundred guests" in addition to the marching units. [2]

The Z-bloggers and Russian milblogger ecosystem are reading this honestly. The withdrawal of equipment is not a security concession dressed in bureaucratic language; it is the regime conceding that a static column of vehicles in the open is a target it cannot defend. The parade that survives is the political ceremony stripped of its martial substance. The day is what it was before 1945 — a Sunday in May.

-- KATYA VOLKOV, Moscow