The Kremlin said Tuesday that 29 foreign leaders will attend the Victory Day military parade in Moscow later this week.Among the attendees areChinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva,Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico will be the only European leaders at the parade on May 9.Other confirmed guests include the leaders of Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Bosnia, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Congo, Myanmar, Cuba, Ethiopia and Equatorial Guinea, as well as traditional Russia allies in Central Asia.The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will also attend, along with the heads of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two pro-Russian breakaway regions of Georgia not internationally recognized as independent states.Speculation has mounted around the scale of this years parade, which Moscow says will be its grandest yet.
The event commemorates the Soviet Unions defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II and has taken on renewed symbolic importance as the Kremlin seeks to rally public support for the war against Ukraine.Ushakov said soldiers from 13 foreign countries, including China, Egypt, Vietnam, Myanmar and several former Soviet republics, will march on Red Square during the May 9 parade.Ukrainian authorities warned foreign troops against participating, saying marching alongside Russian soldiers would amount to sharing responsibility for the war.