​RUSSIAN PEACEKEEPERS TAKE PART IN VICTORY PARADE IN TRANSNISTRIA

For the first time ever, Russian peacekeepers, continuing their mission in Transnistria, took part in the military parade in Tiraspol organized by the Transnistrian ministry of defense on May 9.

The parade was opened by legendary WW-II tank T-34 carrying a copy of the historic Victory Banner. After the tank there followed armored personnel carriers, mobile missile launchers and other Russia-made armored vehicles – 36 machines all in all that carried various kinds of weaponry.

After that there marched over 600 men representing the combat units of the Transnistrian ministry of defense, border troops, the Ministry of the Interior and the Transnistrian committee for state security (KGB), as well as the military from the Operative Group of Russian Troops (OGRV) in Transnistria.

The military part of the parade over, the main Tiraspol square saw the participants in the action called “Immortal Regiment”, carrying the photographs of their fathers, grandfathers and other relatives who took part in the Second World War.

That latter march involved Transnistrian president Yevgeny Shevchuk, deputies of the Transnistrian supreme soviet [parliament] and the regional government. According to the Transnistrian mass media, the May 9 marches, held across the unrecognized republic, involved a total of some 25 thousand people, including ten thousand in Tiraspol.

After the parade in Tiraspol, citizens were invited to the Russian military base that held an open-door day with an exhibition of combat machines, the reconstruction of a war combat and other funs.