“The list of leading foreign delegations that will come to Moscow to celebrate Victory Day”, published by the Kremlin, is not long at first glance. Only nine people count.
Upon closer examination, however, it is evident that the reality is even more deplorable. Only four can be considered the real leaders of the states: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (who, of course, will not participate in the military parade), Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, Malaysian Sultan Ibrahim Iskander and Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith.
The other three people on the list are representatives of the Republika Srpska, a self-governing entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina. And the other two are representatives of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, internationally unrecognized pro-Russian separatist entities on the territory of Georgia.
50 world leaders also came
There were times when the celebrations of the anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Russia were an event that the world’s most important statesmen did not want to miss. They had a particularly packed list of foreign guests in Moscow in 2005, when 60 years had passed since the defeat of Nazi Germany. At that time, around 50 heads of state and a total of around 150 high-ranking foreign representatives arrived.
Among them were the then US President George W. Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, French President Jacques Chirac, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Indian Prime Minister Manmóhan Singh.
The Czech Republic was then represented by President Václav Klaus. The then head of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, and the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, also arrived.
The military parade at that time was also opulent, while this year, due to fears of Ukrainian counterstrikes, it will not include a parade of armored vehicles or a march of military cadets. The mobile network and Internet services will also be blocked in Moscow for several days.
