The Kremlin announced on Tuesday that 29 foreign leaders are set to attend Russia’s annual Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9, an event expected to be one of the largest in recent years.
According to Kremlin foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be among the most high-profile attendees. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico will be the only European leaders present.
Other confirmed participants include heads of state from Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq, Cuba, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Bosnia, Congo, Myanmar, and Equatorial Guinea, along with Russia’s traditional allies from Central Asia. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are also expected, as are the heads of South Ossetia and Abkhazia—two Russian-backed separatist regions in Georgia that lack broad international recognition.
This year’s Victory Day parade, which marks the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, holds particular symbolic weight amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The Kremlin has framed the conflict as a continuation of its historic fight against fascism.
Soldiers from 13 foreign nations—including China, Egypt, Vietnam, Myanmar, and several former Soviet republics—will reportedly march alongside Russian troops on Red Square.
Ukraine has condemned the participation of foreign militaries in the parade, warning that doing so could be seen as complicity in Russia’s war and an endorsement of its actions in Ukraine.
