President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan will take part in the Victory Day celebration in Moscow on Tuesday, as earlier only one head of state allied to Russia announced their presence at the celebration, reports Meduza.

Vladimir Putin at the summit of the leaders of the CSTO statesPhoto: Sergey Bobylev / TASS / Profimedia Images

Ruslan Zheldibai, the spokesman of President Tokayev, said that the Kazakh leader will visit Russia on May 8-9 on an official visit in honor of Victory Day in World War II, and will also visit the memorial to Soviet soldiers in Rzhev, where one of his uncles died and was buried during “Great Patriotic War”.

“The head of state will also visit the mass grave in the village of Trubino, where his uncle Kasym Boltayev is buried. About 22,000 soldiers and officers recruited from Kazakhstan took part in the Battle of Rzhev,” Zheldibai said.

Earlier on Monday, Russian state media announced that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had also accepted Putin’s invitation to travel to Moscow for the Victory Parade, despite unprecedented tensions between Russia and his country over Moscow’s refusal to intervene in the conflict with Azerbaijan.

Previously, only the president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadar Japarov, said that he intended to spend May 9 in Russia.

Change in Moscow’s position regarding the presence of foreign leaders on Victory Day

New information released by Russian state media about Putin’s “invitations” to allied heads of state contradicts the Kremlin’s official position last Monday, when Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no “special invitations” had been sent this year.

Officially, the Kremlin argued for the absence of foreign heads of state by the fact that this year is not an important anniversary of events.

Last year, not a single international guest took part in the Moscow parade in the context of a “special forces operation” launched by Putin that frightened even Russia’s traditional allies.

This year, holidays in the border regions and on the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia, were mostly canceled for security reasons.

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