But on Saturday, the images of Soviet veterans and their families floated past on Russian television, a public vigil adapted for the era of social isolation.

The coronavirus outbreak transformed Russia’s 9 May Victory Day celebrations, a holiday usually marked by family gatherings, memorials and an elaborate military parade on Red Square.

“Of course it is hard, it is a real shame,” said Svetlana Fomina, an elementary school teacher returning from a shopping trip. “But I don’t see any other choice than to stay home. It would be ridiculous to mark [Victory Day] by everyone getting sick.”

Things looked very different in neighbouring Belarus, where elderly veterans and thousands more viewers packed on to bleachers for the usual military parade. Few were wearing masks.

“This year, let the military parade in Minsk be the only one in the post-Soviet space,” boasted Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s president, who has publicly downplayed the dangers from the pandemic. The country has more than 22,000 cases of the disease and has recorded 126 deaths.

He appeared to relish upstaging Moscow’s celebrations.

“In this insane, disoriented world, there will be people who condemn us for the time and place of this sacred act,” he said defiantly. “Don’t rush to conclusions or condemn us, descendants of the victory of Belarusians. We couldn’t have acted differently. We had no other choice. And even if we had one, we would have done the same.”