The Russian national anthem was played in Belgrade on Monday as hundreds of Serbians, including senior government officials, assembled for Victory Day, showing the political strain of a country long aligned with Moscow but now trying to join the EU.
At a march to pay homage to Serbian and Soviet troops who died in World War Two, someone held a giant letter Z - symbol of Russia's invasion of Ukraine - and someone else had brought a life-size cardboard cut-out photo of President Vladimir Putin.
