SAVONLINNA (Sputnik) — To get to the Baltic Sea for a Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg, Russia’s heavy nuclear battlecruiser Pyotr Veliky and the nuclear-powered submarine Dmitriy Donskoi will have to sail through international waters.
This simple fact gave Germany’s NRD TV and Bild magazine enough reason to call this a PR-stunt and a "demonstration of force."
"We have decided to revive the main naval parade, which will be held in St. Petersburg. I assure you this is not saber-rattling, it is the restoration, the revival of traditions that are more than 100 years old," Putin said at a joint press conference following talks with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
"We are ready to invite regional partners to take part in the event," Putin said.
The main parade in St. Petersburg and the smaller ones in the cities of Vladivostok, Severomorsk, Sevastopol, Baltiysk, and Astrakhan, are timed to the celebrations of Navy Day, which is on the last Sunday of July.
