Victory Day in Kyiv on May 9 was a sad, sulky and pensive affair.
Instead of a traditional parade, a festive walk across Independence Square commemorated the 66th anniversary of the end of the World War II .
It was not a milestone anniversary, so authorities decided to save up for Ukraine’s 20th independence celebration in August. President Viktor Yanukovych greeted a few hundred veterans and sparse crowds.
Surviving soldiers, sailors and airmen, among others, represented the memory of more than 26 million Soviet citizens killed in the war.
In Kyiv, no more than 8,000 veterans are still surviving. Far removed from the Soviet Union, these toddlers and schoolchildren will be the next to judge, venerate and mourn the events of 1939-1945.
At the same time, nearly 20,000 military marched across the Red Square in Moscow, followed by some 100 armored trucks and tanks and five helicopters.
In Russia, Victory Day remains the most glorious of holidays, despite all the still-raging controversies over many wartime issues, from the Nazi-Soviet Pact to the role of Ukrainian nationalists.
Photos by Yaroslaw Debelyi, AP
