The parading was to ______.

The center of Moscow today was transformed into a sea of color. Bearing standards of the Red Army, thou sands of Russian servicemen marched across Red Square in commemoration of the Soviet Union’s victory in the Second World War.
   Parading too were two and a half thousand frontline veterans of the war. As they were driven in trucks across Red Square, they waved red carnations and were saluted by more than fifty world leaders who had gathered here to mark the anniversary.
   In a speech, Putin said tens of millions of Soviet citizens had been killed in the war. But he paid tribute to allied troops in Western Europe who had been killed battling Nazi Germany.