2012 Moscow Victory Day Parade

The Moscow Victory Day Parade in Moscow's Red Square was held on 9 May 2012 to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi Germany in 1945. 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 Russia Vladimir Putin made his first holiday address in this parade.

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.

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. 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.

This year's combined military band, conducted by Lieutenant General Valery Khalilov in what is his 10th Victory Day appearance as Senior Director of Music of the Military Band Service of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, will have more than 1100 bandsmen and for the first time in 3 years will see the return of the Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov Moscow Military Music School's Corps of Drums leading the parade in its dark blue and red dress uniform, as it has always done since the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945.

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Wikipedia