RUSSIA: World leaders gathered in Moscow yesterday to toast the 60th anniversary of the end of the second World War with a military parade, bands and a thundering fly-past by fighter jets, writes Chris Stephens in Moscow
President George Bush put aside simmering disagreements with host President Vladimir Putin to join him on a reviewing stand in Red Square for the ceremony.
A total of 54 world leaders, including the Taoiseach, were in attendance, one of the largest commemorations of the end of the war ever held.
The Russian president said May 9th was "the day when good triumphed over evil and freedom triumphed over tyranny." "Dear friends, we never divide the victory into ours and theirs, and we'll always remember the help of the Allies - the United States, Great Britain, France - and other countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, the German and Italian anti-fascists," he said.
Mr Putin also reminded the world of the contribution of the former Soviet Union, which lost 29 million dead in second World War. "The most brutal and crucial events which determined the drama and the outcome of that inhuman war unfolded on the territory of the Soviet Union," he said. "The Soviet army first stopped the fascists outside Moscow."
Mr Bush called the celebration "a moment where the world will recognise the great bravery and sacrifice the Russian people made in the defeat of Nazism." Church bells across Russia rang out to mark the Victory Day and 2,500 allied veterans paraded through Red Square. With most in their eighties, they were spared the marching, being carried in a fleet of green reconstructed second World War-era army trucks.
Central Moscow was sealed off by police and special forces with many subway stations closed amid fears of bombs planted by Chechen rebels.
The operation led to impromptu street parties by tens of thousands of Muscovites, and small demonstrations by Communists and extreme right-wing parties.
British prime minister Tony Blair stayed away, preoccupied with organising a new Cabinet, sending deputy prime minister John Prescott in his place.
Among dignitaries were Chinese President Hu Jintao, French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Ukraine's president Viktor Yushchenko, who had earlier threatened to pull out after Moscow issued an arrest warrant for Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko on fraud charges.
Following the parade, Mr Putin led Mr Bush and other mourners to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin wall, where they laid red carnations by the Eternal Flame.
Mr Putin called Mr Bush his guest of "special importance" above all others, and the two men and their wives chatted together in the Kremlin, a rare burst of sunshine in an increasingly troubled trans-Atlantic relationship.
Russian hackles were raised over the weekend when President Bush, visiting Latvia, called on Moscow to recognise its war-time occupation of this Baltic state.
Russia hit back yesterday, with Pravda, a news service close to the Kremlin, running a front-page editorial accusing Mr Bush of being "provocative and aggressive instead of conciliatory and diplomatic." Police later arrested two dozen nationalist protesters who tried to blockade Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga inside her embassy.
Russia's Victory Day comes the day after the rest of the world, which celebrates on May 8th, because of a quirk in timing: The original surrender document called for German forces to stop fighting at 11.01 pm Central European time on May 8th, 1945, which was 1.01 am the following day on Russian clocks.
Air Force One carrying President Bush will today touch down at Shannon Airport for a brief refuelling stop on the president's return to Washington from Europe.