No aircraft will participate in Russia’s May 9 Victory Day parade due to bad weather, Russian authorities say. 

According to Russian weather service Fobos, conditions over Moscow were going to be “difficult” in the morning of May 9, 2022, Russian news agency Ria Novosti writes.  

A cloud layer was forecast to descend as low as 300 meters, the agency quoted a Fobos spokesperson as saying.  

Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian president Vladimir Putin, confirmed the cancellation of the flypast to Ria. 

The rest of the parade is proceeding as planned. This is not the first time the flying part of Moscow’s Victory Day parade has been canceled. It already happened in 2017 due to inclement weather. Back then, Peskov explained that regulations prohibit flights if the cloud base is lower than 500 meters. 

During the numerous rehearsals in the days leading up to the parade, the jets of the Russian Air Force have been observed flying in the Z formation, a letter used as a symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  

Three Sukhoi Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jets have also been observed during the rehearsals, possibly indicating that three serial-production aircraft of this type are currently in service. 

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