Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken center stage at Russia’s Victory Day parade on Friday, surrounding himself by friendly world leaders in a highly choreographed show designed to show the Western world that Russia is far from isolated.

Victory Day parade is set to take place in Moscow on May 9, in a week dramtically marked by a series of Ukrainian drone strikes on the city. Russia's Victory Day celebrations on May 9, which mark the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II,

Russian state media showed China’s President Xi Jinping and Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko in the audience of a May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow.