Putin's Victory Day parade this past May was supposed to feature "10,000 people and 125 units of various types of weapons and equipment", with last year's including "11,000 people and 131 types of weapons were involved in the military parade, with an airshow of 77 aircraft and helicopters". Instead, "there was just one ancient World War II-era T-34 tank leading the mechanized column on Tuesday" with a small amount of other equipment. How was the scaled-back celebration covered on television news?
CNN's footage emphasized the small scale and vintage of the equipment on display.
Chinese media focused on tight shots of individual pieces of equipment with crowds behind them:
And larger crowd shots taken from angles that hid the lack of displayed equipment:
Russian media similarly showed lots of closeups, interiors of vehicles and crowd shots. Solitary shots were designed to make them feel purposeful rather than reflecting reality. You can look across the entire day of coverage in the Visual Explorer to see more of the footage.
Including this closeup of the underside of one of the trucks, which was also shown on Chinese television.
Some footage interspersed personal stories and interviews to fill airtime.
