Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks before a parade to mark Victory Day in the Moscow Red Square, Wednesday, May 9, 2007.(Xinhua/AFP Photo)

    MOSCOW, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Headed by military drummers and the tricolor national flag, the red Victory flag and the Flag of Armed Forces with hammer and sickle, Russian troops on Wednesday held an annual military parade on the Red Square to mark victory in World War II.

    Some 7,000 officers and soldiers took part in the parade on the cobbled square to celebrate the 62nd anniversary of the Victory Day, marking the Allies' victory in 1945 on the European front of the war, known as the Great Patriotic War here.

    Live TV broadcast showed that the one-hour ceremony was attended by President Vladimir Putin, veterans and foreign guests as well.

    In his address to the ceremony held on the square against the Kremlin wall, Putin recalled the contribution made by the generation of people during the war and pledged to eradicate roots of such wars existing nowadays.

    "Those threats are transforming and changing facades, but they also contain disrespect for human life as well as claims to universal exclusiveness and dictate, quite the same way like it was in the Third Reich," the Itar-Tass news agency quoted Putin as saying.

    The president called on countries to shoulder "common responsibility and equitable partnership" in a bid to cope with such threats.

    "Victory Day unites not only this country's citizens but also our closest neighbors ... We'll never forget their contribution to the defeat of Nazism," Putin said.

    He also condemned attempts in some countries to tear down monuments of the Soviet soldiers who were killed in the war.

    After the march of military phalanxes and the flight of nine fighter planes in a diamond-shaped formation over the cloudy sky, a group of uniformed servicemen with white, blue and red flags poking out of their rifle barrels, symbolizing the Russian tricolor, performed exercises to the drum beats of military bands.

    Russia estimated that 8.86 million Soviet soldiers were killed during World War II, the daily Gazeta newspaper said on Tuesday. The total casualties of both civilians and troops were estimated at 26.6 million.

    The former Soviet Union entered the war in 1941 after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler broke off an earlier pact and invaded the Soviet territory.

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