Russia said on Sunday a major annual navy parade had been cancelled for “security reasons”, without specifying the threat or concern.
“It has to do with the general situation. Security reasons are of utmost importance,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted by Russian news agencies.
The parade was meant to be the highlight of Russia’s Navy Day, which falls on the last Sunday of July each year and honours the country’s sailors.
But local authorities in the coastal city of Saint Petersburg, where the warships and submarines were scheduled to pass, said on Friday the parade had been cancelled without giving a reason.
Russian President Vladimir Putin — who re-established Navy Day in 2017, nearly four decades after it was cancelled in Soviet times — appeared in a video message hailing the “bravery” and “heroism” of Russia’s sailors participating in the offensive in Ukraine.
“We are celebrating the holiday in a working atmosphere,” Putin said later on Sunday, in a video address to Russian forces involved in large-scale naval manoeuvres called “July Storm”.
The drills, launched earlier this week in the Baltic and Caspian seas as well as in the Arctic and Pacific oceans, involved more than 150 ships and over 15,000 troops, Putin said. “Our main task is to ensure Russia’s security and firmly protect the sovereignty and national interests,” Putin said in Saint Petersburg, where he was travelling on Sunday, according to the Kremlin.
Russia, which launched its military operation on Ukraine in February 2022 with daily bombardments of its neighbour, has faced retaliatory Ukrainian drone strikes on its territory in recent months.
The Russian defence ministry said on Sunday that 100 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight.
At least 10 of them were intercepted not far from Saint Petersburg and a woman was wounded, the governor for the northwestern Leningrad region, Aleksandr Drozdenko, said on Telegram. That drone assault also disrupted operations at Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, delaying dozens of flights, the facility’s authorities said.