70th anniversary of the Great Victory

MINSK, 10 May (BelTA) - More than 600,000 people attended the military parade and festive procession in honor of the Victory Day in Minsk on 9 May, BelTA learned from spokesperson for the Interior Department of the Minsk City Hall Alexander Lastovsky.

"The total number of people who took part in the Victory Day festivities was more than 600,000,” said Alexander Lastovsky.

Over 5,000 military personnel and about 250 army vehicles as 19 parade detachments on foot and 24 vehicle detachments took part in the parade. During the parade spectators were able to see army hardware dating back to the Great Patriotic War and also the main kinds of the weapons and vehicles used by the Belarusian army today. The parade began with vehicles dating back to the Great Patriotic War such as GAZ-AA, GAZ-67 trucks, the MLRS BM-13 Katyusha, the tanks T-34, T-44, IS-2, IS-3, BT-7, and self-propelled artillery systems Su-100 and ISU-152.

The Great Patriotic War army hardware was followed by modern armored vehicles, air defense missile systems, artillery units and multiple-launch rocket systems. The number included T-72B tanks, infantry combat vehicles BMP-2, MLRS BelGrad and Smerch, air defense missile systems S-300PS, S-300V, and Tor-M2.

For the first time the parade featured a large amount of army hardware from Russia from the regional military force.

After the ground units went by the spectators, Minsk residents and visitors saw the aerial part of the parade.