Russia Rolls Out the Big Guns for V-day Parade

It has been 17 years since T-90 battle tanks last rolled across the cobbles of Moscow's Red Square. But today they were back in an unmistakable roar of diesel fumes, trundling past Lenin's tomb and the fantastic domes of St Basil's Cathedral.

Led by a rather tubby general holding a sword, Russia held its latest Victory Day parade, marking the 63rd anniversary of the defeat of fascist Germany. This parade, though, was different.

For the first time since the cold war the Kremlin showed off its heavy weaponry, reviving a communist-era practice that fell into disuse in the democratic 1990s. Over the past eight years as president, however, Vladimir Putin has transformed Russia from a partial democracy into an authoritarian state.

Along the way, he has revived many potent symbols of Soviet greatness - the Soviet anthem, the red star, and - today - the 22-meter long inter-continental ballistic missile, wheeled past the GUM shopping arcade and the boutiques of Gucci and Prada.

Putin's apparent aim is to send an unambiguous signal to the rest of the world - that after a period of weakness in the 1990s, Russia is once again a great power that can't be messed with. It is back at top table.

For the first time since 1990, a year before the Soviet Union's collapse, Russia's military brought out some of its kit: jeeps, tanks, long-range anti-aircraft missile systems, (recently flogged to Iran), and the Topol-M - a vast nuclear weapon capable of hitting Washington.

Up in a near cloudless blue sky, helicopters carried the Russian flag; strategic Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers rent the air, sending the crows fleeing over the Kremlin's ramparts. A diamond formation of MiG-29 fig released a sparkle of fireworks.

Putin, as of yesterday the country's new prime minister, watched the parade from a specially built tribune. Next to him was the country's second most important politician - Russia's new president, Dmitry Medvedev.

Western defence specialists have pronounced themselves unimpressed by Russia's recent displays of strength - memorably described by one as "willy-waving". They rather snidely point out that most of Russia's current military hardware dates from the Brezhnev era. Additionally, Russia's army is mired in a series of scandals involving the bullying of recruits.

"If they wish to take out their old equipment and take it for a spin and check it out, they're more than welcome to do so," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, said earlier this week.

Britain's defence attache in Moscow, Andy Verdon, was less grudging. "Their kit may be old but it's effective. A rifle bullet fired from a Napoleonic weapon will still kill you," he pointed out today, as soldiers decked out in second world war uniforms trooped past.

Gordon Brown and other Nato leaders shouldn't be worried about Russia's resurgent strength, Verdon suggested. "This is a statement that 'we are proud of ourselves and back on the world stage'. But we shouldn't take this as an aggressive act. Nor are we quaking in our boots. We are not returning to the cold war."

Other analysts noted that the real source of Russia's international clout these days wasn't missiles but oil and gas. "Russia wields its influence in very different ways. It would be more appropriate to parade through Red Square with oil derricks and pipelines," Sam Greene of the Carnegie Centre in Moscow said. "You flaunt what you've got."

"The whole 'my ICBM is bigger than your ICBM' is so passe," Robert Hewson, the editor of Jane's Air Launched Weapons, added. "It's just gesture politics. Anyone who knows anything about the real state of Russia's military knows that investment, technology and production have withered over the past 20 years."

Nevertheless, much of today's parade was impressive and graceful. Soviet war veterans took their places on specially erected viewing platforms. Some 8,000 parade troops decked out in modish uniforms marched into position as a brass band belted out martial tunes.

"We can sleep easily at night with an army like this," said Yakob Vasilyevich, a former second world war fighter pilot. "Europe has always coveted our territory - just look at Hitler and Napoleon."

"We are proud that our country is strong and able to defend itself," another spectator, Irina Antonova, said.

Lenin, however, was nowhere to be seen. The stage built for Putin and other VIPs cleverly concealed his mausoleum. It was here that the Soviet politburo once stood. What the dead Bolshevik leader would have made of Putin's artful, post-modern pastiche of the Soviet Union is anyone's guess.