The first rehearsal of the V-Day military parade’s air show was held over Moscow Thursday morning with 72 planes and helicopters taking part, the Russian Defense Ministry said. This reported by TASS agency.

The world’s largest military transport helicopter Mi-26 escorted by a quartet of Mi-8 helicopters opened the show. It was followed by Mi-28N, Mi-35, and Ka-52.

Next the onlookers saw a group of five long-range planes - four Tupolev-22M3 bombers and the strategic missile carrying jet Tupolev-160 White Swan. Also taking part in the rehearsal were strategic bombers Tupolev-95MS, tanker planes Ilyushin-78, military transport planes Antonov-124 and Ilyushin-76MD, fighters Sukhoi-35S, Sukhoi-30SM, Sukhoi-27, MiG-29, MiG-31BM, front-line bombers Sukhoi-34 and Sukhoi-24M, fighter-bombers Sukhoi-25 and combat and training planes Yakovlev-130.

The aircraft took off from eight airdromes in the Moscow, Tver, Bryansk, Saratov, Kaluga, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Nizhni Novgorod regions. The MiG-29 and Sukhoi-30SM jets of the aerobatic groups Strizhi (Swifts) and Russian Knights took off from the air base Kubinka, west of Moscow. On Kubinka’s airfield one can also see a sextet of Sukhoi-25 jets that will end the parade by drawing Russia’s white-blue-red state flag with colored smoke trails in the sky over Red Square.