2016 Moscow Victory Day Parade
The 2016 Moscow Victory Day Parade was a military parade that took place in Red Square in Moscow on 9 May 2016 to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi Germany in 1945. The annual parade marks the Allied victory in World War II at the Eastern Front, on the same day as the signing of the German act of capitulation to the Allies in Berlin, at midnight of 9 May 1945 (Russian time). President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin delivered his thirteenth holiday address to the nation on this day, right  after the parade inspection that had presided over by Minister of Defense General of the Army Sergey Shoygu and led by the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Ground Forces, Colonel General Oleg Salyukov. This was the second consecutive parade that included a moment of silence. Overview. Guests. Other guests included People's Artist of Russia Joseph Kobzon, American boxer Jeff Monson, American filmmaker Oliver Stone, and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Preparatory activities. Beginning in November/December 2015, preparations for the parade were well attended at the unit level. Individual unit practices were held in the various military installations  for all the participating units in the national and local parades. Unit practices within Moscow Oblast itself started in early March in the Alabino field before the full blown parade practice run-throughs for all the participating units will commence. All parade practice runs began on 26 March 2016 in Alabino with the first practice run through for the ground column, kicking off the month long national preparations for Victory Day, and will last even until the middle of April when the runs on Red Square for the national parade itself will start, ending with a final general combined practice  run of the parade in early May. From the 3rd week of March up to the 3rd week of April, the Alabino military training center serves as the parade training ground for the estimated 12,000 military personnel in attendance for the Moscow parade, plus more than 175 vehicles and 80 aircraft. Also rehearsing for the parade are the massed military bands of the Armed Forces, the MVD, EMERCOM and the Moscow Garrison, all to be conducted for the 14th straight year by Lieutenant General Valery Khalilov, the Senior Director of Music of the Bands Service of the Russian Armed Forces  since 2002, with a combined number of more than a thousand military bandsmen, and the world-famous Corps of Drums of the Moscow Military Music College "Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov", under the leadership of Colonel Alexander Gerasimov, the long-time college director, which has always (with a brief break from 2009 to 2011) had the traditional privilege starting 1940 of leading the parade proper, distinguished by their dark blue and red dress uniforms, snare drums and fifes, plus the color guard unit. The 15 April practice run through in Alabino was the first to be recorded live through a drone  and also the first rehearsal run-through ever to be live streamed on YouTube through RT's YouTube channel. Debut appearance of the National Guard of Russia and the Russian Aerospace Forces. This year's parade did, as always, featured the ODON Division which, for the very first time, marched under the banner of the newly established National Guard of Russia, created on 5 April 2016, and replaced the now defunct Internal Troops, together with the Zhukovsky - Gagarin Air Force Academy, under the banner of the 9-month old Russian Aerospace Forces founded in August 2015. First ever parade to  include active women in the Armed Forces. After the positive response and rave reviews of the first ever girls' cadet company that marched in Red Square in 2015, the 2016 parade, for the very first time, featured women officers and other ranks of the Armed Forces marching past, honoring the many women who fought during the 4-year long conflict in the battlefield and the home front. This year's first women's battalion was led by Colonel Olesya Buka (one of the longest serving female officers) and was composed of 2 companies of both lady officers, WOs and other  ranks from the Military University of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation and the Military Academy of Material and Technical Security "General of the Army A. V. Khrulev". Full order of the 2016 parade. Bold indicates first appearance, "italic" indicates multiple appearances, Bold and italic indicate returning appearance, all indicated unless otherwise noted. Other parades. As per tradition, 26 other Russian major cities (Sevastopol and Kerch in the disputed Crimea included) held their parades on this day, and joint civil-military parades were hosted by 50 other towns and cities nationwide. Parades were also held in both the  pro-Russian territories in eastern Ukraine (the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, both featuring the United Armed Forces of Novorossiya and the republican MVD and EMERCOM units). Kazakhstan did not hold any parades this year (either on this day or on 7 May), but Belarus carried on with the annual veterans' parade on this day in Minsk, Ukraine held its usual parade and Military tattoo in Kyiv after a 6-year break.