Azerbaijan Uses Photoshop to Delete Armenian Flag from Moscow’s V-Day Parade

MOSCOW (armenianow.com) — Propagandists at Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense have tampered with a photograph from the weekend’s Victory Parade in Moscow to cut the Armenian flag from the still picture.

Both Azerbaijani and Armenian military units, among some other foreign troops, marched through Red Square in the Russian capital on May 9 in a grandiose event marking the 70th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s defeat in World War Two.

The servicemen of the two South Caucasus neighbors marched one after the other, in Russian alphabetical order, as their presidents, Serzh Sarkisian, of Armenia, and Ilham Aliyev, of Azerbaijan, watched the Parade from the tribune among some three dozen world leaders attending the event.

But in posting an official photograph on its website later that day, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry used Photoshop to delete the sign of Armenian presence at the parade.

Russian news agency Regnum.ru published the original photo and the one that was presented by the Azerbaijani ministry that day. It commented tartly that the manipulation was so clumsy that “the History Museum [in the background] has lost one of its windows.” As a result of this fraudulent act,
the artistically unique façade of the building looks different.

“The hope that May 9 would become a day that could bring peace in the relations of the two neighbors even for a short time was dispelled very quickly,” the news agency wrote.