Purged! Nervous Putin Cuts Russian Air Force From 2022 Victory Day Parade

In a surprise admission of unreliability, Moscow cut the Russian Air Force from the 2022 Victory Day Parade, a large-scale military spectacle commemorating the surrender of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War. World War in Europe. The flyover, which is expected to include more than 70 aircraft, was apparently canceled due to weather conditions, although in Moscow the land portion of the parade took place under good visibility and lightly cloudy skies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin presided over the parade in person, giving a low-key speech, saying defending Russia “was a sacred thing”. As expected, Putin associated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the sacrifices of World War II, justifying the Russian military fiasco as “proactive resistance to aggression” and a “forced, timely and uniquely correct decision”. .

Unlike previous public appearances regarding Ukraine, Putin has softened his traditionally belligerent public persona. Rather than grumbling threats and launching into bizarre conspiracy theories, Putin’s VE Day speech was relatively restrained, containing no hints of a broader war.

Putting did not declare victory, nor declare war on Ukraine or NATO. He did not order a general mobilization. Putin’s message was simple, acknowledging the casualties and the fact that the “special military operation” is underway.

The war continues, though the muted VE Day parade suggests that, with low military resources, the wheels are falling off a long-cherished pillar of the Russian state.

Why no plane?

The brutal purge of the Russian Air Force reflects the service’s unreliability, underscoring its poor performance and continued inability to gain control of Ukrainian airspace. A toxic combination of battlefield attrition, lack of pilot training and poor maintenance practices – along with growing frustration among military leaders – likely forced the Russian Air Force out of the highly publicized festivities in Red Square.

The flyover, if it had happened, would have been awkward. It’s no secret that the Russian Air Force is collapsing under the weight of sustained combat operations.

The Russian helicopter fleet takes constant beatings and, given battlefield attrition, parade planners did not expect to use more than 15 helicopters, a humiliating reduction from a large contingent of 23 helicopters barely a year ago.

The story is no better for Russian fixed-wing aircraft. The Sukhoi Su-30 Flankers and Su-34 Fullback fighter-bombers, facing heavy losses and high demand, were also not going to be represented in the parade.

Instead, the parade was held to celebrate Russia’s squealing fleet of Mikoyan Mig-29 fighter jets. After showing 4 Mig-29s in previous victory parades, Russia was to use 16 Mig-29s, sending the older fighters on a “Z” flyover.

Apart from the “Z” formation flight, the central – and most provocative – attraction of the show was originally to be fulfilled by the Ilyushin IL-80 “Maxdome” command and control aircraft, an “apocalyptic “which ensures that Russian leaders stay in touch with their nuclear arsenal during a war. But with only three examples still flying, the 35-year-old IL-86 passenger jet bypass had little backup should the designated parade plane fail.

If the parade had gone ahead without the “apocalyptic” headliner, the plane’s absence would have been widely noticed and widely discussed. Some might catch the idea that Russia was cutting back on its dangerous nuclear war rhetoric, which Putting might not want. Alternatively, the plane’s abrupt disappearance could suggest that Russia’s vaunted strategic forces are in disarray. Putin’s increasingly tenuous grip on power could hinge on the respect others accord to Russian strategic fighters, and a display of unreliability might have been too much to bear. Stopping the whole parade for “weather” reasons might have been a much easier option.

Russian pilots may also face constraints, and the weather may simply have been too difficult for them. The flyover was canceled, although the conditions were windy, the weather seemed perfectly fine for a flyover. Russian planes performed ceremonial flights in much worse conditions. But, in less than perfect conditions, if the war sucks in Russia’s best pilots, the flyover second ropes of the parade might not have been quite ready to show off their tattered gear and skills in front of a global audience.

Fuel may also have been an issue. Mig-29s are notorious gas guzzlers. And with the fuel-hungry fighter expected to make up more than a quarter of Moscow’s parade planes, any supply shortages would have been hard to hide. With rumors that flyovers have been canceled during other Russian victory parades, critical supply shortages or another systemic failure cannot be ignored.

The Real Storm Clouds: Moscow’s Security Fears

Putin is certainly aware that military “victory” parades are dangerous places for unstable and contested regimes. In 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, celebrating Egypt’s successful attack on the Suez Canal, was shot and killed amid military pageantry. In 2018, Iranian militants, dressed in military uniforms, opened fire during a military parade commemorating the 1980s war with Iraq, shooting at the VIP grandstand.

While threats on the ground can be handled by trusted security forces, planes are kinetic instruments, piloted by individuals. The cockpit is one of the few places where Russian security guards are absent. An individual pilot, flying a high-performance jet aircraft, could easily take charge, ramming the aircraft into the large, easily identifiable viewing stand before anyone could react. And Putin, surrounded by aging veterans, would be an inescapable target.

With rumors of intergovernmental tension, the abrupt absence of the Russian air force – despite several successful training sessions under much worse weather conditions – is notable. At a minimum, the sudden ceremonial purge of the Russian Air Force suggests that the Russian Air Force is operationally and, potentially, politically unreliable.