The 9 May Victory Day Parade is Vladimir Putin’s annual showpiece — the moment when Russia’s military prowess is paraded through Red Square and broadcast to the nation. Tanks. Missiles. Soldiers in step. And, traditionally, a thundering flyover of Russian Air Force fighters and bombers overhead.

This year, the massed flyover was reduced to a single fighter formation and a six-ship Su-25 smoke pass. ” The heavy hardware procession and the full air parade were dropped amid fears of Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow — and with fewer and fewer combat aircraft to spare from the front in Ukraine.

So Russian state television did something extraordinary: it cut to a computer-generated sequence anyway. Digitally rendered Su-30s of the Russian Knights and MiG-29s of the Swifts soared over the parade ground in an impossible inside-the-formation camera view — broadcast to millions as if it were real footage.

A Parade Without Wings

The shrunken flypast did not surprise military analysts. The Russian Aerospace Forces have been bled white over more than four years of high-tempo combat — Su-34 Fullback strike fighters, MiG-31s, Su-25 attack aircraft, and helicopters have all been lost in significant numbers. Pulling fifty combat aircraft out of the line just to fly over Moscow for a politician is a luxury Russia can no longer afford.

Officially, the scaled-back parade was about security; the state of the front-line fighter fleet is the explanation nobody in Moscow says out loud.

Caught in the Render

The CGI did not fool the internet. Within minutes of the broadcast, Western OSINT accounts on X (Twitter) were posting frame-by-frame breakdowns: a camera that impossibly flew right between the jets, unrealistic aircraft movements, and graphical inconsistencies. Even the national flags painted on the digital jets caused confusion online — though those flags really do appear on the real Su-30s of the Russian Knights, marking countries the team has displayed in.

It was not even a first: during the 2021 parade broadcast, Russian TV had already cut to a CGI clip of a Su-57 formation. This time, OSINT accounts identified the real Su-25s tail-by-tail within hours — while the CGI segment fell apart under frame-by-frame scrutiny.

Why It Matters

The substitution itself is the story. Russia’s information apparatus has lied for decades about almost everything — but rarely about something this visible, this physically verifiable, and this central to the national myth. The Victory Day flyover is supposed to be the visible proof that Russia is still a great power.

This year, the proof was rendered in a CGI suite.

Sources: The Aviationist, OSINT analysis on X, Reuters.