Serbian soldiers march on Red Square

Serbian soldiers march on Red Square

MOSCOW -- Members of the Serbian Army (VS) Guard were among the servicement who on Saturday took part in the Victory Day parade on Moscow's Red Square.

This was the largest parade of its kind organized to date by Russia to mark May 9, the day when Germany capitulated in 1945.

The former Soviet Union lost some 27 million soldiers and civilians during the course of the Second World War.

Addressing today's ceremonies - not attended by a large number of western leaders over the Ukraine crisis - Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out to the "ignoring of the basic principles of international cooperation" in recent decades.

"We have witnessed attempts of organizing of a unipolar world. We can see how the force bloc-based thinking has been gaining power. That all is undermining the stable international development," Putin said, according to TASS, and added:

"Our common task should be offering equal-security system for all countries, which is adequate to modern threats, and which is based on regional, global, bloc-free basis. This way only we shall provide peace on the planet."

The Sputnik website quoted the Kremlin as saying that 30 leaders of states, governments and international organizations - among them Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic - attended the parade in Moscow.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova also took part in the celebrations.

More than 16,000 servicemen, almost 200 units of military equipment and some 140 helicopters and planes participated, as Russia "demonstrated a number of brand new weapons systems during the event, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled guns and anti-tank missile...