Over 20 Russian cities cancel Victory Day military display

At least 21 Russian cities will not hold a Victory Day military display this year, Verstka reports.

The cities of Kaluga, Ryazan, Oryol, Saratov, Gusev, Lipetsk, Yelets, and Tyumen have cancelled their military display “out of safety concerns”.

There will also be no military display in Pskov, a regional capital, and Velikiye Luki in the same region. Mikhail Vedernikov, the local governor, says many servicemen come to the region for rehabilitation and “perceive fireworks sounds in a whole different way”. He also made a point that the money could be spent “on bare essentials for the special military operation participants” instead of the fireworks.

Kursk cancelled the military display “considering the current situation”, and Belgorod did the same thing “in order not to provoke the opponent by a large gathering of military equipment and servicemen” in the centre of the city. Verstka notes that the authorities of the Krasnodar region have not formally announced the cancellation of parades in Krasnodar and Sochi, but said that military equipment can only be seen in Novorossiysk this year. The governor of the Bryansk region Alexander Bogomaz said that this year the authorities will not be able to set up “the festivities the way we would like to see them.”

On top of that, no mass events are expected in Nizhnevartovsk, Surgut, and Khanty-Mansiysk, cities located far away from the front line. The mayors of the cities say they want to “display solidarity with other regions of the country”.

There will be no military displays in any cities in Crimea as well.

Russia accused Ukraine of attempting a drone attack on Vladimir Putin’s office in the Kremlin yesterday. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov clarified that Putin was not in the Kremlin during the attack. The Russian side “reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it sees fit,” the Kremlin added.

The country’s Investigative Committee has initiated charges on the account of a terror attack. Ukraine’s authorities state that Kyiv has nothing to do with the drone attack. The US-based Institute for the Study of War believes the drone attack on the Kremlin was likely a false flag staged by Russia “in an attempt to bring the war home to a Russian domestic audience and set conditions for a wider societal mobilisation”.