Putin’s 2026 Victory Day parade was supposed to showcase Russia’s strength—but the empty seats told a different story. From Armenia and Kazakhstan to Serbia and Hungary, longtime partners are distancing themselves from Moscow as the Kremlin’s influence weakens. In this video, we examine how Russia’s alliance network is unraveling, why former allies are turning toward the West, and what this growing isolation means for Putin’s geopolitical ambitions and Russia’s future on the world stage.
00:00 - An Isolated Victory Day
02:16 - Armenia Turns Away From Moscow
06:02 - Kazakhstan Breaks Control
09:15 - Azerbaijan Sours on Russia
11:48 - Moldova Reclaims Transnistria
15:07 - Europe's Fractured Alliances
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SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/Mb8s7ZZM
00:00 - An Isolated Victory Day
02:16 - Armenia Turns Away From Moscow
06:02 - Kazakhstan Breaks Control
09:15 - Azerbaijan Sours on Russia
11:48 - Moldova Reclaims Transnistria
15:07 - Europe's Fractured Alliances
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/Mb8s7ZZM
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NewsTranscript
00:00On May 9, 2026, Russian President Vladimir Putin stood in Red Square to mark Victory Day,
00:06arguably the most sacred date on Russia's political calendar.
00:10But the celebration of the 81st anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany was very different
00:15from the previous years. For Putin, this parade has been less of a commemoration than a chance
00:21to show the world Russia's military power and geopolitical reach. The latter part was important
00:27because the list of invitees was created to show which countries were still aligned with Russia.
00:32This year, the answer was pretty much nobody. The parade itself lasted just 45 minutes. There
00:39were no tanks, no missile launchers, and no heavy armor rolling across the cobblestones.
00:44Instead, the parade was strictly about soldiers from Russia marching alongside none other than
00:49soldiers from North Korea. And the list of foreign heads of state who actually attended was scaled
00:54back as well. Only Malaysian King Sultan Ibrahim Iskander, Laotian President Donglun Sisulith,
01:01Kazakhstan President Karsim Jumat Tokayev, Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev,
01:07and Belarus authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko attended the festivities in the Russian capital.
01:13Meanwhile, Prime Minister Robert Fiko of Slovakia, a European Union member, visited the Tomb of the
01:19Unknown Soldier memorial located just outside Kremlin rather than attend the festivities in Red
01:24Square. Just three years earlier, in 2023, all five Central Asian presidents had traveled to Moscow
01:30to stand beside Putin. They did it again in 2024 and again in 2025. For 2026, the invited Armenian
01:39Prime Minister told Putin a month in advance that he was too busy because he was campaigning at home.
01:45Those empty spaces beside Putin are silently telling a story the Kremlin desperately doesn't want you to
01:51see. Because while the world watches the front lines in Ukraine, a quieter, slower catastrophe has
01:57been unfolding behind Russia's back. One country after another, from the Caucasus to Central Asia to the
02:03Balkans, is walking away. The alliance Russia spent 30 years building is coming apart at the seams.
02:10This is how Putin is losing his last allies and why Moscow is starting to panic.
02:15Let's start with Armenia, because Armenia is the betrayal Moscow never saw coming.
02:20For decades, Armenia was as close to Russia as a country could be. It hosted a Russian military
02:25base, depending on Moscow for its security. It also belonged to the Collective Security Treaty
02:31Organization, or CSTO, which was Russia's answer to NATO. Its energy, its trade, its very survival
02:39seemed to be tied to the Kremlin. If Russia had a genuine ally in the South Caucasus, it was Yerevan.
02:45Then came 2023. For years, Armenia had counted on Russia to protect it in its long standoff with
02:52neighboring Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian peacekeepers were
02:58stationed in the region precisely for that purpose. But when Azerbaijan launched its offensive and seized
03:03the territory, the Russians did nothing. To millions of Armenians, it looked like abandonment and went directly
03:09counter to the agreement Armenia signed with Russia after it became an independent country.
03:14That was the breaking point, and why Armenia turned the other way. In February 2024, Yerevan froze its
03:21participation in the CSTO, the alliance that was supposed to be its shield. Note the terminology froze.
03:28Armenia hasn't formally torn up the treaty, but it stopped showing up, stopped paying its share in funding it,
03:34and worst of all, it stopped pretending the alliance means anything. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan began
03:39turning west, toward the European Union and the United States. He started buying weapons from France
03:45and India instead of Russia, and in 2026, he started looking toward other alliances for military defense.
03:52Armenia hosted the European Political Community Summit in Yerevan. Dozens of European leaders flew in.
03:58Among them were French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky,
04:03the first Ukrainian president to set foot in Armenia in 24 years. So Armenia, which was arguably a former
04:10Russian client state, rolled out the red carpet for the leader Russia is trying to destroy.
04:15The summit was also key in Armenia's move toward the west as Pashinyan pledged that he would negotiate
04:21visa-free travel between it and the EU in as little as two years. Days later, Pashinyan skipped the Victory
04:28Day
04:28parade in Moscow. Russian officials lashed out, accusing Armenia of platforming anti-Russian
04:33statements and acting against the spirit of relations between the two countries. Putin himself suggested
04:39Armenia hold a referendum on its European future, then ominously compared Armenia to Ukraine, reminding
04:45everyone that the war in Ukraine, in his telling, began with Kiev's attempt to join the EU. It was less
04:51a piece of advice than a threat. But here's what should worry Moscow most. In late May, US Secretary of
04:57State
04:58Marco Rubio landed in Yerevan. And alongside Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, he signed a charter on
05:05comprehensive strategic partnership between the United States and Armenia. This started a framework for an
05:10agreement on something called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIP. Basically, this would be a
05:17transit corridor that went through both Armenia and Azerbaijan, forming the basis for a peace agreement
05:22between the two nations, something that Russia hasn't been able to manage for a decade. Even worse, TRIP also
05:29gives precedence to projects that process and export mineral ore mined in Armenia within the country,
05:35rather than shipping them to China. This could cut off both Russia and China from precious resources and
05:41give NATO access to vital transport infrastructure that connects Central Asia and Europe. In one
05:47fell swoop, Russia lost not only an ally, but also part of its control over the Caucasus,
05:53access to minerals, and part of its ability to transport goods across Central Asia, or at least
05:58dictate where those goods go. But if Armenia is their ally that walked out, Kazakhstan is almost
06:04completely out of Moscow's control. As a quick reminder, Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central
06:10Asia, showing the longest continuous land border in the world with Russia. As part of the former Soviet
06:15Union, it also has a large ethnic Russian population in its north. And that last point is where Russian
06:21nationalists start to point to when they start questioning whether a neighbour really deserves
06:25to be independent as with what happened with Ukraine in the previous decade. And since 2022,
06:31those voices have grown louder, openly questioning Kazakhstan's borders and its right to exist as a
06:36sovereign state. Kazakhstan's Tokayev has played one of the most delicate balancing acts in modern
06:41geopolitics. He hasn't broken with Moscow, still meeting with Putin and keeping Russia as the
06:47country's largest import partner. But that figure only stands for imports. On the other end,
06:52Tokayev has quietly refused to follow the Kremlin into the abyss. Kazakhstan has never recognized
06:57Russia's puppet republics in eastern Ukraine, citing international law. It rejected deeper military
07:03integration under the CSTO, and it's worked carefully to avoid becoming a giant loophole for Russia to
07:09dodge western sanctions. Instead, Kazakhstan's export trade is focused on China and Italy. At the same
07:16time, the country has tried to make closer ties to Turkey, signing a deal in 2022 to assemble Turkish
07:22drones under license. The country also introduced the Taymas 8x8 in autumn 2025, an IFV that combines
07:30Turkish and Chinese designs, completely bypassing Russia as a military supplier. Meanwhile, the
07:35chairman of Kazakhstan's Association of Defense Industry Enterprises, which oversees the country's
07:41military-industrial complex, said that NATO standards were more modern and safer. And there's also the
07:46geopolitical posturing, where in a 2023 meeting with Putin and other vital Russian officials,
07:52Tokayev pointedly delivered part of his speech in Kazakh rather than the traditional Russian.
07:56In response to all of this, Russia abruptly halted the flow of Kazakh oil to Germany through the
08:02northern branch of the Druzba pipeline. This route was feeding the strategically critical
08:07Schwyk refinery, which supplies the fuel for Berlin and the surrounding region. Moscow blamed vague
08:12technical reasons, which almost nobody believed. Germany had alternative supply options available,
08:18but the move created concerns for the Schwyk refinery. But Kazakhstan doesn't have the infrastructure
08:23to pipe the oil independently. The message was simple. Cross us, and we can hurt you.
08:28But here's the twist. The leverage runs both ways now. A court at the Astana International Financial
08:34Center cleared the way for Ukraine's state energy company, Naftogaz, to pursue around $1.4 billion
08:41in Gazprom assets, which was the first time any foreign court had publicly authorized enforcement of that
08:47arbitration award on another country's soil. Now, in fairness, Kazakhstan's government quickly
08:52distanced itself, with its justice ministry insisting it wouldn't actually enforce the ruling,
08:57calling that particular court extraterritorial. So Tokayev is not about to declare open war on Moscow,
09:04but pause on the fact that the ruling happened at all. A few years ago, the idea of any court
09:08inside a
09:09Russian-allied state siding with Ukraine against Gazprom would have been unthinkable. Then there's Azerbaijan,
09:15a country that, on paper, had every reason to stay friendly with Moscow.
09:19The turning point here began on Christmas Day in 2024. Azerbaijan Airlines flight J28243,
09:27an Embraer passenger jet flying from Baku to the Russian city of Grozny, was crippled in mid-air
09:32and crashed near Akhtau in Kazakhstan, killing 38 passengers. The cause, according to Azerbaijani
09:38officials and a growing body of evidence, was an accidental strike by a Russian surface-to-air missile.
09:44The missile was reportedly fired during a drone interception operation over Grozny,
09:49and exploded near the aircraft. The damaged plane was even reportedly denied permission to land at
09:53Russian airports and sent across the Caspian Sea, where it went down. Azerbaijan President
09:59Ilham Aliyev accused Russia of shooting down the plane and then trying to cover it up for days. He
10:04demanded an apology, an admission of guilt, and punishment for those responsible. For nearly a year,
10:10Moscow dodged any claims, and Putin offered vague regrets and apologies but refused to take
10:15responsibility. That was until October 2025, when Putin finally admitted, in a face-to-face meeting with
10:22Aliyev, that Russian air defenses were to blame. By then, the damage to the relationship was done.
10:28But that was only the start. In June 2025, Russian security forces raided the homes of ethnic
10:35Azerbaijanis in the city of Yekaterinburg, detaining around 50 people in connection with decades-old
10:41murder cases. Two people died in custody. Their families and human rights group claimed they were
10:46tortured via beatings and electric shocks. Russia denied wrongdoing and blamed one death on heart
10:51failure. Azerbaijan canceled Russian cultural events across the country. It pulled out of a planned
10:57parliamentary meeting in Moscow. And then it did something almost unheard of for a supposed partner of
11:03the Kremlin. Azerbaijani police raided the Baku offices of Sputnik, Russia's state propaganda outlet,
11:09detained its journalists, and accused some of them of being undercover Russian intelligence agents.
11:14Geopolitically, Azerbaijan started backing Kyiv's territorial integrity, providing humanitarian and
11:20energy assistance, and hosting Zelensky for talks on security and energy. And as Europe races to cut
11:26its dependence on Russian gas, Azerbaijan is becoming the key link in the energy corridors that carry
11:32the central Asian and Caspian resources to European markets. These routes bypass Russia completely,
11:38something that Russia previously used as leverage on the region. From here, we need to move west.
11:44But before that, make sure you're subscribed to the military show. We make daily videos that follow
11:50the news in geopolitics. Back to Russia's failing alliances. The first western country we'll visit
11:56is Moldova. For decades, Russia's lever in Moldova was Transnistria, a thin sliver of breakaway territory
12:03along the Ukrainian border, occupied by Russian troops since the early 1990s and propped up by
12:08Moscow ever since. The frozen conflict gave the Kremlin a permanent foothold, a way to keep Moldova
12:14destabilized and out of the west's reach. You see, Moldova has been trying to close chapters on EU accession,
12:21but the EU is wary of countries that don't fully control their territory. For example, Cyprus managed
12:26to get into the EU, but the EU law doesn't apply in the Turkish Northern Territory. For Moldova,
12:32the EU previously proposed the same model, but has since changed gears, potentially requiring the
12:37full resolution of Transnistria before continuing accession negotiations. So Moldova has changed the game.
12:44Instead of endless negotiations over Transnistria's special status, the government in
12:49Kishinau has shifted to a quiet strategy of reintegration. It's stripped away the special
12:54tax and custom privileges that Transnistrian businesses enjoyed and slowly pulled the region
12:59into Moldova's own economic and legal system. And the European Union is backing the approach.
13:05The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaya Carlos, has gone so far as to say the withdrawal of Russian troops
13:10for Transnistria should become part of Europe's demands on Moscow. For the Kremlin, this is a slow
13:16motion disaster. Moldovan and European officials accused Russia of trying to interfere in Moldova's
13:222025 parliamentary elections, so the pro-European president Maya Sandu and her allies held on.
13:29Moscow went back to its playbook of trying to exert pressure on countries demographically,
13:34so Putin signed a decree making it far easier for residents of Transnistria to obtain Russian passports,
13:40waiving the usual residency language and history requirements.
13:44It's a tactic Russia has used before in occupied Ukraine and Georgia's breakaway regions. Manufactured
13:50citizens then claim the right to protect them and send troops in. But this time, there's another goal
13:56in play. The Moldovan president warned that the most likely purpose of the newest wave of mass
14:01passportization isn't protection but recruitment. As Russian citizens, Transnistrians could be funneled
14:08into the Russian conscription system and shipped into the war in Ukraine. And that might not be something
14:13that the citizens there actually want. In fact, there's not a single reliable poll on the
14:18population's opinion of the war and potentially joining it. The last poll was in 2016 and was made
14:24from a directly pro-Russian pollster on adhering to the Russian Federation, a shorthand for joining Russia.
14:30In there, the population was overwhelmingly for Russia. But according to Carnegie, when Transnistrians
14:36actually get to vote in Moldovan elections, they do so for pro-EU parties. So there isn't even a
14:42consensus on where the region wants to go geopolitically. That likely means that there's
14:46far less support for going to war in Ukraine, which would mean that all those efforts by Russia
14:51would be for naught. And yet the fact that it even tries the tactics means that it's scraping for a
14:56way
14:56out of sending its more valuable population to the conflict, that being the people from large cities
15:01who've been insulated from the war's effects. Finally, there are two friends Russia had inside
15:06Europe who have allowed it to directly or indirectly influence the continent's economy and geopolitics,
15:12Hungary and Serbia. Hungary was arguably Putin's favorite government in the European Union.
15:17Under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Budapest delayed sanctions, blocked aid to Ukraine,
15:22and pointed the finger at Brussels rather than Moscow. Whenever NATO or the EU tried to vote,
15:28Hungary was a surefire veto on anything Russia related, delaying projects if not completely
15:33stopping them. That era is over. In April 2026, Orban lost after 16 years in power,
15:40when his Fidesz party was defeated by Peter Magyar's Tisa party, and Magyar took office in May.
15:46Nearly immediately, his government has begun steering Hungary back toward the European mainstream.
15:51It dropped objections to a major EU financial package for Ukraine and summoned the Russian
15:56ambassador after strikes hit Hungarian populated areas of western Ukraine. Magyar also announced a
16:02war on corruption, specifically the systems used by the former Orban government. He even went so far
16:08as to start moving toward replacing the country's president, who was appointed during Orban's rule.
16:14Geopolitically, Hungary is also weaning off its ties to Russia, starting with oil and gas imports. While
16:20Magyar directly stated that he can't see Hungary being completely independent from Russia,
16:24Russia, as Russian energy is consistently the cheapest, he posited 2035 as a cut-off for finding
16:30new sources. And then there's Serbia, perhaps the most telling case of all. For decades, Moscow
16:36cultivated the image of Serbia as a brother nation, bound to Russia by being both Orthodox and Slavic.
16:42Serbia also had extreme grievances against NATO and the West that were never truly resolved. And when
16:48the war in Ukraine started, Serbia played both sides of the conflict, allowing Russian citizens to enter the
16:53country visa-free and then starting to give out temporary residences in the thousands.
16:58By the end of 2023, it was estimated that 200,000 Russians were in the country, and by 2025,
17:0564,000 of them had obtained residence permits to start their own businesses and continue their lives
17:11in a country that has close ties to the EU. Serbia also refused to sanction Moscow, claiming its own
17:17experiences with sanctions after the dissolution of Yugoslavia to draw from, rather than failing to
17:23align with the EU and NATO. But even that bond is fraying. The EU has criticized the seeming pro-Russia
17:29stance, even threatening to impose a visa restriction on the country if it doesn't slow down the acceptance of
17:35Russian citizens. And in an interview with Politico, on the sidelines of a security summit in Prague,
17:40the Speaker of Serbia's Parliament and former Prime Minister Anna Brnovic was asked point-blank whether
17:46Serbia could really keep claiming brotherly ties with Putin while pursuing EU membership. She insisted
17:52Serbia shares the European Union's values, condemns the war, and supports Ukraine's territorial integrity.
17:58The relationship between Serbia and Russia was even outright denied as brotherly. The country has
18:04also exported $920 million worth of weapons and munitions to Ukraine, albeit indirectly through
18:10third parties like Bulgaria and Czechia. When pressured to stop exports, the Serbian president
18:16announced that it would halt them, but seemingly reversed course mere months later, continuing to
18:21export to European partners and not bothering to ask where the weapons and munitions end up.
18:26While the amounts here are paltry compared to US and other NATO exports, Serbia has a significant
18:32arms industry that follows Yugoslav templates, which itself is modeled after the Soviet Union.
18:37This means Serbia actually produces munitions like the 122 and 152 mm rounds, which Ukraine can
18:44use in its most numerous armored vehicles, rather than the 155 mm standard adopted by NATO. Additionally,
18:51Serbian munitions are much cheaper than those in the West, meaning that more of them can become
18:56parts of weapons packages from European nations. And then you have Russian news outlets claiming that
19:01Russia was betrayed by a relatively insignificant nation with a population of barely 7 million,
19:07one that isn't geographically close to Russia, is not historically aligned with the Soviet Union,
19:12and has been an EU candidate for nearly 15 years at this point. When you have to go to such
19:17lengths to
19:17characterize alliances, it goes to show just how isolated Russia is in global geopolitics.
19:23So let's step back and look at the whole board. Armenia is walking into the arms of Washington.
19:29Kazakhstan, squeezed but unbroken, is courting China and Europe. Azerbaijan is raiding Russian propaganda
19:35offices and arming up with Turkish drones. Moldova is dismantling Russia's last foothold. Hungary voted
19:42out Putin's man. And Serbia refuses to call Russia a brother. The war in Ukraine, which Putin launched in
19:49part to reassert Russia's dominance over its old empire, has done the exact opposite. It shattered the
19:55myth of Russian power and made Russia a non-starter for global geopolitical alliances. That's why the empty
20:02seats on Red Square matter so much. The 2026 parade showed that Russia no longer has anyone to rely on
20:09but
20:09itself. And even that is no longer a certainty, as domestic confidence in Putin is slowly being eroded. To learn
20:17more,
20:18check out this video and make sure to stay subscribed to get the most recent news on global geopolitics.
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