Who will attend Putin’s Victory parade on May 9? The guest list will be a barometer of Russia’s standing in the world and how far he has got in building an alternative international community in the Global South, shorn of its dependence on the West.

Any top leader that shows up will be aligning themselves with Putin’s regime and defying sanctions and Western anti-Russian sentiment in a bold statement of which side of the geopolitical East-West clash they stand on. And obvious allies like Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko have already said they will go. But a bevy of leaders from Europe, Latin America and Africa have also said they will attend.

Support for Russia may not be rising, but condemnation of its invasion of Ukraine is clear waning. In every UN vote to condemn Russia since the start of the war, the number of countries voting for the motion has fallen from the original 144 out of 196, to only 93 in the last vote on the third anniversary of the start of the war that bizarrely saw the US vote with Russia on a watered down resolution that failed to name Russia as an aggressor.

This year's parade is already shaping up to be a much grander affair than any of the victory parades of recent years, where Russia typically shows off its latest hardware. Unusually, military detachments from at least ten other countries will participate, highlighting Russia’s growing international clout as the leader of the anti-West rebellion. Troops from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Serbia, Tajikistan and North Korea, among others, will all march on Moscow’s Red Square together with their Russian colleagues.

The commemoration of what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War is one of the most important in Russia’s political calendar. While the UK and the US lost some half a million men each in the fighting, the Soviet Union sacrificed around 25mn people, 13mn of them Russians. An entire generation of 20-somethings were wiped out in the brutal fighting. Every family in the USSR lost someone, which they commemorate today in a parade with pictures: the “Immortal Regiment.”

Last year’s parade hit an all-time low. Before the annexation of Crimea in 2014 the event attracted top European and US leaders such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and then-US President George W Bush, who came on the 60^th anniversary of the end of the war in 2005 to acknowledge the Allies’ debt to Russia for defeating the Nazis.

After the Crimea annexation attendance plummeted. Western leaders have universally shunned the event and even pro-Western countries in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) have stayed away, with some exceptions.

Last year’s parade was almost entirely made up of the Central Asian leaders and Serbian President Aleksander Vucic from the Balkans, who is trying to navigate a middle path between East and West. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was there too, and he will go again too. In a surprise decision Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at the last minute he will not attend this year’s parade on April 17.Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan also attended in 2023, despite his western leanings, as he was also trying to remain on the fence and his country is still heavily dependent on Russia for gas and trade.

Notably, Xi did not go, despite being Russia’s closest ally and declaring a “no limits” partnership with Russia a year earlier during his visit to Moscow.

 

Victory Day parade attendees - 2024
Name	Country / Entity
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev	Kazakhstan
Sadyr Japarov	Kyrgyzstan
Emomali Rahmon	Tajikistan
Serdar Berdimuhamedow	Turkmenistan
Shavkat Mirziyoyev	Uzbekistan
Alexander Lukashenko	Belarus
Miguel Díaz-Canel	Cuba
Umaro Sissoco Embaló	Guinea-Bissau
Thongloun Sisoulith	Laos
Aleksandar Vučić	Serbia
Robert Fico	Slovakia
Milorad Dodik	Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Mahmoud Abbas	Palestinian Authority
Ilham Aliyev	Azerbaijan
Nicolás Maduro	Venezuela
Source: bne IntelliNews

 

Who is going this year?

The full gamut of old faithful’s from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) will be on the stand as every year. The five leaders of the ‘Stans – Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and Turkmen President Seder Berdimukhamedov – will be present, as they are every year.

In addition, most of these countries are also sending their prime ministers: Elam Alive (Azerbaijan), Alexander Lysenko (Belarus), Kasai-Kmart Toke (Kazakhstan), Sadie Kasparov (Kyrgyzstan) and Shevat Moiseyev (Uzbekistan).

One notable absence is Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan, who attended in 2023, but relations have soured dramatically since President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev invaded and rapidly recaptured the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year which had long been occupied by Armenia. However, the need to at least keep cordial relations with Russia means the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikon Pinyin, will be present.

Asia:

This year’s turnout will be much bigger and much more important. Xi tops the list and will be the guest of honour, but equally important is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has a more complicated relationship with Putin. While Xi and Putin both see the non-Western organisations like the BRICS as a geopolitical rival to the G7, Modi would rather see multinational bodies like G20 as cooperating with the West to promote economic development. Amongst the Global South there is still no consensus on what they are trying to achieve.

Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary To Lam is another notable attendee from Asia. Russia has been flirting with Vietnam, which is emerging as a key state in SE Asia and is also being wooed by the US. Putin visited Vietnam last June to deepen ties in a rare visit to Asia ahead of a similar trip by US President Joe Biden.

Another important possible attendee is Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto. He has been invited twice, in December and again last week, by the Kremlin, but has yet to answer. Indonesia initially said in 2023 it said it would join the BRICS, but later pulled back, saying it was “still studying the implications” of membership and “preferred not to rush” the decision. It was invited to join the BRICS again last year and finally did so in early January 2025.

Latin America:

Only three Latin American leaders have confirmed their participation in the celebrations of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Great Patriotic War: Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.

Lula has moved closer to Russia as the BRICS+ club continues to develop after taking in more new members at the last BRICS summit in Kazan at the end of last year. The BRICS, whose rotating presidency is held by Brazil this year, and its sister organisation, the G20, have had a boost thanks to the West’s attempt to aggressively bully countries into supporting its sanctions on Russia.

While holding a neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, Brazil has long sought a diplomatic solution to the conflict and launched the “Group of Friends of Peace” initiative with China at the UN last September to draft a peace plan – an endeavour dismissed as “destructive” by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Besides sharing a long history based on ideological affinity and anti-US sentiment, Russia and Cuba continue to strengthen their cooperation on energy, trade and infrastructure.

In January, Russia said it would provide Cuba with a $60mn credit line for fuel purchases and an additional $2mn in aid for power infrastructure, as the communist-run island grapples with a severe energy crisis that leads to recurrent blackouts.

Venezuela and Russia have long-standing military and economic ties dating back to the tenure of former president Hugo Chavez. Russia is a major creditor to the cash-strapped Venezuelan government, having extended approximately $17bn in loans since 2006. In turn, Moscow, through its state-controlled energy firm Rosneft, maintains an interest in Venezuela's vast oil reserves, the world's largest proven deposits.

In addition to mutual diplomatic support, including Venezuela’s consistent backing of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine at the UN and the Kremlin’s unwavering support for President Nicolas Maduro despite his recent disputed re-election, collaboration now spans multiple domains such as space exploration and defence. During the BRICS summit in Kazan, Putin strongly advocated for Venezuela’s entry into the burgeoning trade bloc.

However, in a blow to Maduro, Caracas’ bid was vetoed by Brazil, which does not recognise the official result of last year’s contested election due to the Venezuelan electoral council’s refusal to publish detailed voting tallies and widespread allegations of fraud.

Notably absent from the key Russian event will be 79-year-old Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a staunch ally of Vladimir Putin in the region.

Europe:

The most scandalous visitors are coming from Europe.  Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Serbian President Aleksander Vucic have said they will attend despite stringent objections by Brussels and an EU ban on top officials viisting Russia. 

Both are EU countries and, following the invasion of Ukraine, Brussels made it explicit that none of the leaders from the 27 member states should visit Moscow for occasions like the Victory Day parade.

EU foreign policy chief and former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas explicitly called out Fico, telling him not to go after he announced his participation. Fico took offence.

"Ms. Kallas, I would like to inform you that I am the legitimate Prime Minister of Slovakia – a sovereign country," he wrote. "No one can tell me where I should or should not travel. I will go to Moscow to pay my respects to the thousands of Red Army soldiers who died liberating the Slovak Republic,” he said in a Facebook post on April 15.

Another controversial attendee will be Serbian President Aleksander Vucic. The EU ban on visiting Russia also applies to aspirant EU members. Serbia applied for EU membership in 2009 and obtained candidate status in 2012.

However, Vucic, who studies Russian in his spare time, has maintained good relations with Moscow and remains heavily dependent on Russian gas supplies, so he has decided to ignore the ban and go anyway. He has also refused to adopt Western sanctions against Russia since the 2022 invasion has drawn increasing scrutiny from EU leaders. His counterpart from the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has made the same decision on similar grounds.

The EU leaders have warned Vucic that his expected attendance at Russia’s May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow “could jeopardise Serbia’s long-standing bid to join the EU,” the Telegraph reports, as it could be seen as a violation of EU membership criteria and derail the country’s bid.

“We have to make it clear to them that certain decisions have their price,” said Jonatan Vsevjov, secretary general of Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as quoted by the Telegraph. “The consequence is that they will not join the European Union.”

Another surprise is that neither Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban nor any Hungarian officials will attend the Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, according to a statement released by the Prime Minister’s office on April 17.

The decision marks a deliberate distancing from the Kremlin’s annual commemoration by Orban, who has been one of Putin’s most outspoken allies in the EU.

Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister's Office, confirmed the absence of Hungarian representatives from the event. “Even if the countries of Western Europe were on good terms with Russia, it would still not make sense for Hungary to take part in the celebrations, as the end of World War II marked a bitter defeat for the country,” he stated.

However, the reason for Orban’s decision to stay away may reflect Hungary’s complicated historical relations with Russia. The end of the Second World War saw the country fall within the Soviet sphere of influence, leading to decades of communist rule under Moscow’s dominance – a legacy that remains politically and culturally resonant. Orban is usually happy to travel to Moscow to see Putin, but it seems he is less comfortable to go to a celebration of a Soviet victory and its subsequent dominance of Central Europe.

Other:

There are a few guests from the Middle East and Africa, including the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traore, and South Ossetian President Alan Gagloev.

Russia has become good friends with dozens of African countries and regularly holds African summits that are well attended by most African leaders, but as WWII was largely a European affair there is little pressure on African countries to attend. This fact makes the attendance by Asian and Latin American leaders all the more poignant.

 

Victory Day parade attendees - 2025
Name	Country / Entity
Xi Jinping	China
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva	Brazil
Narendra Modi	India
Aleksandar Vučić	Serbia
Robert Fico	Slovakia
Milorad Dodik	Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Alexander Lukashenko	Belarus
Miguel Díaz-Canel	Cuba
Nicolás Maduro	Venezuela
Mahmoud Abbas	Palestinian Authority
Ilham Aliyev	Azerbaijan
Emomali Rahmon	Tajikistan
Sadyr Japarov	Kyrgyzstan
Shavkat Mirziyoyev	Uzbekistan
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev	Kazakhstan
Serdar Berdimuhamedow	Turkmenistan
Thongloun Sisoulith	Laos
Umaro Sissoco Embaló	Guinea-Bissau
Simona Halperin	Israel (Ambassador to Russia)
Source: bne IntelliNews