Parades are about perpetuating myths. Long after the last soldiers of World War II retired, grew old and died, their might and legend was kept alive by careful national pageantry. For it was not just the soldiers who fell from their moment of glory, but also the victorious nations for which they fought. France, once regarded as a world power, receded to second rank. Britain for a time held her place at the front, but gradually, as she fell back, adjusted her image to reflect her diminished condition.
Unlike the warriors, the nations did not physically age, and had the option to try and preserve appearances for decades. Russia, one of the “superpowers” that emerged from World War II, was in unnoticed decline from the middle to latter phases of the Cold War, stemming from economic stagnation and the inefficiency of its command economy. But unlike Britain and France, she attempted to retain the aura of power and grandeur through imperial display.
National pomp is to nations what clothes are to people; a visual indicator of wealth and glory. As the BBC noted: the pomp and pageantry of the King Charles’s coronation had an important role to play. “Across all cultures, ceremonies matter … ritual actions can activate deep-seated intuitions about causality in people's minds.” Great pomp, great country.
But con men exploit this by concealing bankruptcy beneath a flashy exterior. Long did the Kremlin dine out on the Red Army legend. For years, the king of parades was in Russia, and it conjured the mighty legions of Koniev and Zhukov! But legends are tricky things. Like all apparitions, they waver, intermittently disappear, and sometimes vanish altogether.
Perhaps nothing so dramatically illustrates the perils of fame more than the Vozdushno-desantnye voyska, the VDV, the airborne combat arm of Russia. Historically, the VDV was considered one of Russia's most prestigious and capable military branches. Aug. 2 of every year was actually Paratroopers Day in Russia. Everyone coveted the iconic striped blue singlet. There was even a music video, garnering over 12 million hits on YouTube alone, extolling the glory and coolness of the VDV.
Then came the disaster in Ukraine. The VDV failed to take Hostomel airport in Putin’s failed Special Operation of 2022. In the subsequent months, it "suffered exceptionally heavy losses." Press accounts said that “the lopsided loss has caused Russian military bloggers to call on Colonel General Mikhail Teplinsky, who serves as the commander of Russian forces in the Dnieper, to resign.” As if this were not bad enough, the airborne forces lost one high ranking commander after another. UK intelligence estimated that around 30,000 paratroop forces were deployed to Ukraine in 2022, and that 50% of those have been killed or wounded by summer 2023.
Suddenly, they were no longer legends, but mortals being annihilated. While combat losses to the VDV were made good by replacements, the mystique surrounding the Russian airborne evaporated, seemingly never to return. In the comments section of the once-popular music video, one reader remarked, “The difference between old and new comments is staggering.”
The battlefield failures made the Russian Victory Day parade an embarrassment on a larger scale. The exhibitions of glory were juxtaposed uneasily with news of disaster. Before the invasion, Victory Day parades were grandiose showcases of Russian military might, featuring large numbers of troops, modern tanks, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and extensive air shows. After the catastrophes in Ukraine the ceremonies suddenly downsized.
For example, the 2020 parade marking the 75th anniversary included around 200 military vehicles. By contrast, due to Russia's military losses in Ukraine and the need to prioritize equipment and personnel for the front lines in 2023, only one tank—a World War II-era T-34—was displayed, compared to 130 vehicles in 2019. The 2024 parade was similarly toned down, with minimal modern hardware and a single T-34 tank.
The brand was crumbling faster than a cracker at Cracker Barrel. Perhaps the most revealing development of all came in 2025 when the King of Parades was no longer in Red Square, but in Beijing, where, as the New York Times writes, Putin was in dutiful attendance along “North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, along with the leaders of Iran, Pakistan” and other second-raters to celebrate China’s primacy.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, presided over a massive military parade in Beijing on Wednesday featuring fighter jets, missiles and goose-stepping troops as he issued a defiant warning to rivals not to challenge his country’s sovereignty.
In grandeur, the Beijing extravaganza exceeded the Moscow spectacle even at its height. But it was also a signal to the world who the new leader of the anti-American coalition was – it was not Vladimir Putin, but Xi Jinping.
Ironically, no one was more dismayed by the Russian demotion than Washington. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a few months before, closer ties between China and Russia would pose a problem for the US. If Moscow became the “permanent junior partner” to Beijing, uniting two nuclear powers against Washington under a unified command in Beijing, they would be harder to deal with than separately. As if to confirm this assessment, when Putin returned from the big parade, he was full of confidence and a belligerence he lacked only a few months prior, as if he left for China a powerless potentate and returned a supercharged lackey.
In the Russian Far East, Vladimir Putin delivered a warning to the West: don't even think about sending soldiers - and that includes peacekeepers - to Ukraine.
"If some troops appear there," the Russian president said, "especially now while the fighting's going on, we proceed from the premise that these will be legitimate targets for destruction."
That warning to the West, if it has any credibility, had to be backed by China, for the waning strength of a declining Russia is simply not up to it. The president of Russia speaks no longer solely on his own meager capacity as master of Orthanc, but as the lieutenant of that incomparable fortress Barad-dûr, on whose strength he relies – and one might add – whose creature he has become.
Putin had one big asset going into 2022. The brand name of the mighty Red Army and the still-potent ghost of the Soviet legions. But like the VDV, which was caught up in the Special Military Operation fiasco, Putin squandered Russia's reputational capital, and ruined the brand. Strapped for resources, he had no alternative but to dilute control over Russia’s former nearly unrestricted autonomy, to bail himself out. In the most supreme of ironies, the campaign to conquer Kyiv led, through miscalculation and incompetence, to the surrender of Moscow to Beijing.
Rhetorically one might ask: what of ghosts of the Red Army? Can Putin not rally them one time still, to take Kyiv and face down the West alone? But the few mortal soldiers are living out the last years of their legend in nursing homes, lost in memories vouchsafed to them alone.They have given all that men can give, and earned their rest. No longer will they fall in for the current occupants of the Kremlin. No longer will they give back the huzzah. Putin has to earn his own glory. He summons them once more, but the last shadow only turns his head briefly then hurries after his comrades in the mist. The fog lifts, and only the Chinese parade remains.
