Short answers, pulled from the story.
The largest military parade in history took place on the 24th of June 1945. Forty thousand Red Army soldiers marched across the cobblestones alongside 1,850 military vehicles to mark the end of the Eastern Front of World War II.
Annual Victory Day parades became obsolete because officials prioritized October Revolution Day celebrations held annually in autumn instead. Only three major jubilee parades occurred between 1945 and 1991: in 1965, 1985, and 1990.
A new tradition emerged in 1995 when Russia held its golden jubilee celebration four years after the Soviet Union fell. This event split into two parts: a full military parade on Poklonnaya Hill and a veterans ceremony on Red Square.
Eighty-eight aircraft prepare at air bases like Kubinka for the flypast segment. The flypast marks formal termination with aircraft flying past above the square unless weather cancels it as happened in 2022.
Contingents from France, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States marched alongside Russian forces. President Dmitry Medvedev invited these foreign troops for the first time since the fall of the USSR in 2010.