The Armata is highly computerised, and there have even been suggestions it could form the basis for a fully automated robot tank in future. The White House and Pentagon should keep this in mind.President Vladimir Putin will welcome the leaders of India, China and many other countries to Moscow for the parade on Saturday, although few western leaders will attend, and defence ministry officials will be scrambling to ensure there is no repeat of the incident. The parades are messy, expensive, and morally questionable affairs. In previous parades, repair contracts across the city have sometimes totalled millions of dollars. In 2015, the cost of repairs to Manezh Square, a lead-in to Red Square stormed several times by over 100 armored vehicles, cost the city $80,000 alone. And, every year, Moscow’s city government dishes out tens of thousands of dollars in street repair tenders after the military has retreated to their bases outside the city. The city streets are no match for the treads of a 46 tonne T-90 main battle tank. And needless to say, almost everyone wakes up with a bad hangover. This leaves a lot for the city to clean up the next morning. One year, I stood on the river bank and found myself dodging large, hot chunks of firework shrapnel falling down on the crowd. Fireworks are detonated in a steady barrage. ![]() Transiting across the city center can be a nightmare, especially on foot. When the parade ends, the aftermath begins. They’re all unwelcome, recurring wakeups in the lead up to the big day on May 9. The massive jet engines hanging below the body of the Tu-160 supersonic bombers are a much more pleasant sound in comparison. If you have never heard the propellers of a 60-year-old Tupolev Tu-95 Bear strategic bomber before, I can promise you that they are loud. They practice their Red Square runs early in the morning, and their flight path has always somehow gone directly over whatever apartment I am living in. While the processions of tank columns and nuclear missiles make their way through the city streets mostly at night, it is the bomber flights that have really come to bother me over the past four years. This exacerbates an already dramatic traffic problem. Moscow’s main roads, like the central Tverskaya artery in and out of the city, are closed frequently. But, more important for the common man, it is a major, prolonged disturbance to city life. This takes men and material out of regular and training duty. First, preparations begin weeks before the parade actually begins. While it may seem as simple as calling up Defense Secretary James Mattis and ordering him to arrange a parade, my experience in Moscow over the past four years has shown me it is significantly more complicated. The Victory Day parade serves as an important case study for Americans sympathetic to President Donald Trump’s call for their own massive military parade. Everything about it was unapologetically militaristic. ![]() George’s ribbons, a symbol that saw a massive boost in popularity after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. ![]() The whole city seemed to be adorned in the orange and black St. Some of the kids dressed in costumes resembling WWII-era Red Army uniforms. Families with young children flooded the closed off streets of central Moscow.
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