On parade

Russian women rehearse in St Petersburg’s Palace Square for the May 9 military parade marking the 73rd anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Meanwhile, Alexei Navalny, the leader of protests against Vladimir Putin that led to 1,500 arrests, has been released from detention. Western leaders and rights activists expressed outrage over the arrests and the brutality with which protests were broken up on the eve of Mr Putin’s inauguration.