The anniversary celebrations of victory over Nazi Germany in May 1945, which ended World War II in Europe, have become the main yearly public relations event in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Annual May 9 military parades began in 1995, when then-president Boris Yeltsin used the 50th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) as a grand occasion to redeem Russia’s military prestige, seriously tarnished by the disastrous first Chechen War. In Soviet times, there were only three military parades in Red Square on May 9: in 1965, 1985 and 1990.