The 2012 Moscow Victory Day
Parade was held on 9 May 2012 on Moscow's
Red Square to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the capitulation of
Nazi Germany in 1945.[1] The parade marked the
Soviet Union's victory in the
Great Patriotic War on the very day on the signing of the German act of capitulation, on the very midnight of May 9, 1945 (Russian time). Newly inaugurated
President of RussiaVladimir Putin made his ninth victory holiday address in this parade.[2]
Preparations
Since October 2011, the parade has been well prepared. Rehearsals began to be held by the various participating units.
Beginning from March 2012, in the parade practice site in Alabino,
Moscow Oblast, parade rehearsal were held from the 19th of that month until April 23, and from April 21 and 22 the parade's Mobile Column began its Moscow test runs.
Full rehearsals in Moscow itself started on the final Thursday and weekend of April and lasted until May 6. These also included separate practice runs for the military bands and the mobile column.
The event
Among the attendees were Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev, Chairman of the
State DumaSergei Naryshkin, and Mayor
Sergey Sobyanin.[3] Over 14,000 troops participated in the ceremony.[4][5] For the first time in a year, due to the massive unpopularity of the new
Battledress duty uniforms worn last year by almost all the parading units, all the participants, save for those in the mobile column, began wearing
dress uniforms again.[6] The entire marchpast segment for 2012 was composed of the following Russian uniformed services:
The mobile column was composed of more than a hundred military vehicles from various military units and a squadron of Army Air Center Mi-8s carrying the
Flag of Russia and the flags of the Armed Forces flying past Red Square closed the parade segment.
Colonel General
Valery Gerasimov was the year's parade commander (his final parade appearance) while the Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation,
Anatoly Serdyukov, in what would be his final parade review, was the parade reviewing officer.
Military Bands
Massed Military Bands of the Armed Forces under the direction of the Senior Director of Music of the Military Bands Service of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Valery Khalilov