we've each made the memory of the victims of the great patriotic war live on forever beach in this name the memory of the heroes who died from the freedom and independence of the motherland live on forever. from all of us here at r.t. moscow thank you for observing the minute silence with us dedicated to voters who made the ultimate sacrifice for victory and freedom during what russia calls the

great patriotic war correspondent tom barton can now tell us more about the victory day celebrations here in russia today tom how important is this celebration for russians. well rory it's hard to overstate that somber moment is central to the commemoration of victory in the great patriotic war and that minute's silence is held by attorney all flames and war memorials all over russia and the former soviet union and it's there to commemorate the twenty seven million twenty five to twenty seven million people who died during the course of that conflict when germany attacked the soviet union in june one nine hundred forty one the nazi regime nearly destroyed the soviet union but over the next four years on the battle front ranging from the black sea to the baltic from the volga and all the way back to berlin the soviet union managed to turn the tide of the war until

an armistice was signed in germany in one nine hundred forty five its data chief meant that makes this day and that minute so important time if you would tell us a bit more about what events take place to commemorate the day. well today there's been a parade here through red square fourteen thousand troops tanks modern aircraft and missiles have paraded through and also today there are fireworks all of this just as it was in the parade in one thousand nine hundred forty five to mark the victory then there's also a parade of veterans that number growing smaller each year the people who can remember from their own minds those dark days and also the laying of the wreath next to the eternal flame and the tomb of the unknown so. soldier up against the kremlin walls. tom what about this day is clearly is very important to veterans but

how how important is it for russians the younger generation today. well if you look around in the days surrounding picture day you'll see lots of people wearing ribbons like this this red and black ribbon and that's become the symbol of the commemoration of victory day people hang it on their bags they put it on there because you'll see it's all over the place and also around europe today it's the day after ve day that was held yesterday for the same reason the victory over nazi germany the difference is because the armistice was signed very late in the evening on the eighth of may and in moscow it had already terms to the ninth of may it must be said v. day doesn't hold such weight in europe anymore as victory day does here in moscow a lot of young people here it's been recorded in polls they're starting to forget lenin they're starting to forget stalin but a lot of them still remember victory day it is almost semi religious day here in

the russian calendar and a lot of young people around moscow today have been carrying flowers as they do every year on victory day they give those to all the people to veterans to people who lived through that time with the message thank you thank you for all that you did to win that victory over nazi germany are here to live in central moscow thank you. by to a breaking news story here on out to you know he was an intern easy for a russian passenger plane off the old communications with the aircraft were lost amid flight let's not get the latest from our to use of prio standing by for us live in a new delhi priya it has been several hours now since contact with the plane was last any news on what actually happened. you know ready indonesian authorities are still searching for the russian sukhoi superjet one hundred we're actually hearing that a russian led interstate aviation team is also going to be flying to jakarta to assist

with that search the plane had fifty passengers on it and disappeared off the radar after a demonstration flight in jakarta today it's already gotten dark over there the visibility is bad we're hearing that there is fog so the search has actually stopped as far as helicopters looking for the airplane and it's been restricted to a ground search as of right now the helicopters are expected to take off again to look for that plane in the early morning hours as soon as there is sunlight. the plane went missing twenty minutes into the demonstration on members of the crew actually spoke to aviation officials and asked if they could descend and that was the last anyone heard from any the body on the plane and there are on can infer are media reports that two members of two people that were on the plane you can see that they are online somehow but no one has been able to reach anybody on that plane as of right now we actually got

a chance to catch up with the press secretary of united aircraft corporation which is the company that actually made the russian sukhoi superjet one hundred so let's take a little listen to what she had to say. when your computer printer. to project one hundred it was conducting its second demonstration flight in indonesia the first flight went without a hitch ball flights were carried out from the same airport in jakarta before the second fled the plane underwent required maintenance and was technically in good order according to information from indonesian authorities communication with the plane was lost twenty minutes into the flight at two thirty five pm local time right now the search is on for the plane in the crisis group has been formed. we also have a picture from a man that was supposed to be on that airplane today he has a picture of the flight's path it seems that the plane is circled the mountain once and then began a second fly by but suddenly changed course headed south and that's why no one has

been able to track down the airplane since then we're also learning more information about the fifty people who are on the plane the pilot of that plane is a russian pilot to fifty seven years old very experienced he has flown forty five different types of aircraft there were eight russian citizens on the plane two italians one french citizen and one american most of the passengers were indonesian and a lot of the passion house insurance were from several of the major airline companies that work there it's has the jets performance. this was the second half an hour demonstration that was happening today the plane had previously been in pockets not kazakhstan and me on mar and was set to head to laos and vietnam next. any information from the aviation and or rescue officials in jakarta about the possible causes for the plane's disappearance. you know information just yet obviously you know the investigators are still out there trying to figure out exactly what

happened it seems as though it could have been human error that caused whatever whatever we whatever could have happened we actually talked to a pilot who has experience flying in this very rough mountainous area and here's what he had to say about flying there. i used to fly in jakarta it has a very difficult terrain there's an one thousand six thousand one hundred fifty eight feet high it's very difficult we study this because we're professionals the pilot must have seen the mountain because the plane is very modern it's equipped with all the latest in the quick meant the most likely cause is a human factor or error of some kind but the investigation will establish the exact cause of. so obvious if. he just got out and i pointed out earlier this was a very mountainous region and there was a mountain very close to the airplane when it fell off the radar so there is some

speculation that perhaps it could have crashed into the mountain but obviously the authorities and when the investigation is complete will know that the real answer obviously there's a lot of us speculation at this point that we do want to stand this. one hundred is the latest cutting edge technology the fly by wire system of some saying it should be the the envy of the aviation industry have there been any problems in the past so that you know of what with the sukhoi superjet. no problems in the past we're already on this is the first passenger plane that was built in russia after the soviet union and it's in joint venture between many countries there are parts from this plane that were sent from france the u.s. the u.k. germany and switzerland and italy as well. first model of the plane was unveiled in two thousand and seven the first test flight was in two thousand and eight and the first passenger flight was just last year in two thousand and eleven there

haven't been any problems with the plane but only a dozen of this type of plane have actually been built so far on there have been orders from around the world including in russia for this plane actually one hundred seventy orders so far there is already a dozen that are under construction in indonesia actually signed three hundred eighty million dollars deal in august for this plane which is part of the reason that the plane was doing these demonstrations today i don't he's a live in new delhi thank you. now at the super jet one hundred is the first civil aircraft design done to manufacture it entirely in russia since the collapse of the soviet union it's a joint project of the russian aviation john sukhoi europe's super jet international and several dozen other companies where the plane was a meant to offer a whole new dimension of technology and comfort eclipsing its outdated soviet rivals it features a fully electronic fly by wire system as opposed to the manual flight controls and

is equipped with a built in failure detection system aside from its cutting edge technology the super jet has cost efficient to run due to its lighter weight reduced fuel consumption and lower maintenance costs for the plane belongs to the regional class but is designed to effectively operate on a number of mainline averts. meantime a russian the blogger who was initially supposed to be on board the missing super jet reports online from jakarta is also providing us with the latest pictures from the region just a bit earlier we here at r.t. spoke with them via telephone. the authorities are searching for the plane helicopters just returned but says there's no trace of it rescuers are looking at the maps trying to determine where it could be i have been aboard this plane i flew here on board it there were two flights the first one was fine it lasted thirty minutes then we came back the plane was checked over and it was fine

the second flight should have also lasted for thirty minutes i could have been on it again but i stayed back because i wanted to film it from the ground this was a demonstration flight for an indonesian aircraft company that wanted to buy twelve such planes we have already been on this plane in kazakhstan pakistan my ma the next stops would have been laos and vietnam but here it out here we are following the breaking news that a brand new russian passenger plane has gone missing authorities in jakarta searching for the aircraft after all communications were lost in mid-flight more on this now we're joined by the operations and safety editor for flight global a david lee about life from london good to see you today thank you for coming out here at such short notice you are a safety and operations expert what can you tell us about the safety standards of this plane in particular. well this is a very modern airplane it's built according to very exacting modern standards and

i can assure you that no aircraft of this standard just suddenly when it's still very new. as it is is just going to fall out of the sky. what i think i think the most helpful way of trying to understand what might have happened here is to remember exactly what it's doing in indonesia it's on indonesia as a on a demonstration tour of the world showing off to potential customers just what a good airplane this is and just how clever it is and how far you can take it of course because that was the reason for the the law this is a massive embarrassment to the sukhoi but it was a display flight it was a demonstration flight. demonstration flights sometimes the pilots or the crews. deliberately take the aircraft right to their limits and they do that

sometimes when the aircraft is quite close to the ground that's what a demonstration flight is often like sometimes they push the limits just too far and that might happen quite as you're suggesting here so it's unlikely that it was a technical failure with such a brand new cutting edge state of the art aircraft and possibly possibly of course speculation at this point the pilots could have been doing some sort of daring maneuver to show off what the aircraft is capable of about how long does it usually take though for a plane to move from demo flights to commercial service is it possible the aircraft was simply not ready to fly at this point. know this aircraft actually this aircraft the aircraft type. is in commercial service at the moment service at the moment it's it's flying fare paying passengers in the russian federation at the moment and it has been doing that. for for about a year now so it's in service this is i think this is

a to say this is a demonstration flight it's a sales top it's a sales demonstration basically if you were it's really rather like to take a north a motive equivalent you know taking a potential customer out for a spin in a car when the customer's turned up at the turned up at your room your car sales from when you take a spin especially if it's a high performance machine you expect to see that machine going through its paces so the driver of the of the car if i you continue the analogy is going to throw it around a little bit so you can see just how clever it is how good it is the only thing is that if you think back through many years of air displays and displays not just for the amusement of the public though it is a lot of fun to watch them but if you think back over the years of displays the

number of accidents that take place displays purely because the aircraft are being shown off right up to the edges of their flight envelope and that therefore makes them very much higher risk sorties than a commercial flight or if we can for a moment let's let's address the the region where the plane was flying and it's in the area of jakarta certainly some mountainous areas right there near the airport it's alleged the plane disappeared about thirty two miles or so away from the airport when a plane like this is doing as you're saying it would have an exposé flight does it carry a full load of fuel or is it a smaller loaded. you have some people are saying the plane may have been hijacked some are saying excessive use by the pilots some are saying it could have run out of fuel what kind of option would you go for as to what's actually happened here apart from your scenario saying it could have been a pilot pushing the plane to the max well i can tell you it wasn't any of the other scenarios you suggested to me it's not running out of fuel that aircraft we know

had at least three hours and possibly four hours of fuel on board the other thing is that i mean we're talking about highly professional test pilots on board this aircraft people like that don't just less an airplane run out of fuel so i think you can rule that one out hijack like like who why what's the motivation of being on that's not a commercial flight this one it's a demo flight no i think you can rule that one out. mountainous terrain well yes if there are mountains there a pilot isn't going to run into them if you can see them if the mountains are in clouds the pilot still knows they're there and this aircraft has to rain warning system on it so although i wouldn't say that the aircraft hasn't come down near the heights or rain using the high terrain is an excuse for an accident in an aircraft as well equipped as that i think is

a bit farfetched i think i'll stick to my theory and remember it is only a theory it's certainly a lot of cause we will find out quite soon what the cause was but just because demonstration flights have come to grief so often in the past if i were to put my money on this the cause of this one that's where i'd put it now mr lemon i do apologize we are running very very low on time here but briefly if you would answer this do you consider this whatever has happened here i understand is speculation about a possible slap in the face of sukhoi superjet. yes it is it's highly embarrassing but then on the other hand we will know the answer very very soon and if it does turn out to be the fact that the crews simply were pushing their luck too far then sukhoi will regain face life from london operations on safety editor for the aviation news website flight global david a lear mt thank you very much for

coming on. of course here on r.t. we will keep you updated on the developments in indonesia where the search continues for a brand new russian passenger plane the sukhoi superjet one hundred which as we know has gone missing during a demonstration flight with fifty people on board. turning our attention now to syria where a roadside bomb has hit a military truck injuring six soldiers and the vehicle was part of a convoy carrying the head of the united nations observer mission let's now get more from our correspondent in damascus are. standing by for us right now sara can you bring us up to speed exactly what has happened. well the u.n. observer team in damascus a travelled down south to durant's a day and they've gone as is normal with a team of journalists and the security escort this is happening every day the team in damascus are getting out traveling around the country we were actually down with

a separate team of the north in italy and we were coming back today when we had this news that the the team that a travel to iraq. had witnessed this explosion now would it from the journalists and the people who were that when it happened it sounds like it was some sort of car bomb that went off just as the observers had driven past one of the military checkpoints. they were very very close to it's and injured some of the security personnel who were a school team that is still six people were injured have we seen some of the pitches that damage that was done thankfully no one killed we don't really know the extent of the injuries at the moment we have the head of the mission who was there general robert mood he steered clear of speculating about what could've caused this a smart move because you've already seen the syrian national council that's the opposition group outside the country they've released a statement saying that they've accused the regime of using tactics to push the

u.n. observers out now it's really unfortunate this is something you see a lot in syria these back and forth like these ations from both sides and it happens a lot it's the really muddies the waters with the situation here now what we can tell you is that from what we've seen and we've been with the observers every day for the past couple of days is that more or less the observe it themselves have native they are being welcomed and facilitated by both sides not us not to say that they're not violations happening from both sides in certain areas but they are being welcomed their presence is welcomed and it's having a small but noticeable effect in the areas that they are visiting now that's a fact is also not a secret it's common knowledge here in the country that amongst the opposition you really have. got to make the vision here is there are elements of the opposition that aren't there also in areas that there are large on meth at the moment and in places like iraq and italy where we were last night there are criminal gangs operating and there are foreign nationals who've come into the country who are

fighting now this isn't a secret it was noted by the arab league observers it's being debated right now by the un that's a that is and it will certainly be in their report so you know these are the facts on the ground di lemma for the syrian people is that you know the regime factions have led to the situation they see where this foreign involvement an outside involvement in criminal involvement is able to really have a very serious undermining effect to the stability in this country the real question that we will be nothing today is first and foremost if this explosion today was actually targeted at the u.n. and if it was he would really stand to gain by undermining that mission bearing in mind that it is consider it the best and possibly last chance at peace and stability in the country before you see at the sentence or outright civil war what was sir you sort of where is my next point because you describe a mixed bag of opposition members there you talk about the ongoing violence the u.n. envoy to syria kofi annan as you were mentioning saying that his peace plan is the

last chance for the country to avoid civil war what are the chances that the u.n. really can bring stability to that country. well look this is a very different set of the arab league observers mission and we were monitoring the following days back in january these guys are highly trained they know what they're doing a general rule that means that i have a lot of experience in syria the people know them very well respected people and as we said there is progress you can see the progress on the ground but it is small they have very small steps that are being taken at the moment and it is a this really going to be time as he said we were with the team of observers who have based in one of the areas of the country where the fish spiking is continuing last night you could hear the gun fights going on it's very clear violations on both sides and this is really something that the u.n. observers one thing to watch because of course for a month into this peace plan now you're still seeing huge areas of all the rest is

an area at civil war and i'm very wary of using that term i have been in the past but i mean that actually describes the situation that it is now and at the moment and it really highlights just how important it is to have this is the third mission going ahead and on the ground that was really interesting to come back the attack today as it evolved the u.n. observer says that one of the questions we've been putting to the observers themselves over the past couple of days is how do you guys still about the sentiments would see is there any concern about that changing and they've also you know we're being we're ok and that's fine where there is a concern. a lot of people here is that there is going to be elements trying to undermine this mission and i was speaking to the head of the national coordinator council that's inside opposition here in syria the other day i asked him that question whether he was concerned about the mission being undermined and take a listen to what he had to say. we are afraid that and his plan. is

really threatened by those who are. providing. and fifteen minds even against the plan that started the very very first moment when this plan was declared there said it's a failure it won't be better than the bleep learn. so let's kill the hope that's where they are saying and if the hope is killed what will happen. as he said the u.n. observer mission seemingly being welcomed by both sides but taking small steps there is progress against need to build on that expectations are very very high remember there is a huge amount riding on this we're not going to want to see this affecting the mission and anyway. the life in damascus thank you. bye bye to our breaking news story here on authorities in jakarta still searching

for a russian passenger plane after all communications with the aircraft were lost mid-flight let's now get the latest from shawna thomas who joins us live on the program here. sean good to see you with me now is the since the plane went silent officials in jakarta have they turned up anything yet well rory nothing as of yet and let me explain a little bit as to why it's the middle of the night there because of indonesia's close proximity to the equator there's about twelve hours of day twelve hours of night so the indonesian authorities did send out a search crew they say did send out helicopters but they had to bring those helicopters back because of the nighttime hours also because of fog in the area but what we do know is that at first light which is going to be around six o'clock in the morning those helicopters are going to be up and out again making their search renewed but we also know that there is a crew from russia coming in an international team that is on their way to jakarta right now to assist in that search as well so right now everything is on hold what

we do know is we do know the flight path of the plane and where the last communication of that plane was when it disappeared which is a good place to start looking for that plane now sean to you as far as i understand it you actually lived in indonesia for thirteen years i know you want to sound the to rain very well just how difficult could it be to find the aircraft if indeed it has gone down well certainly where it's not as easy as just going out and seeing a plane obviously for the dark reasons that we just talked about but the train itself the mountains just south of jakarta are very mountainous it's a volcanic region so you have these very tall volcanoes volcanoes which are surrounded by hills and rivers and valleys and plantations and the rivers aren't necessarily straight valleys that you might think of them they're very rocky and treacherous terrain. as well now on the good news side of things job the island of

java is a very densely populated piece of real estate so there are people all around so if something did go down there will be people who are likely to have witnessed what happened but the things that they have working against them right now are night time dark time hours they only have a limited search window also this is the wet season in jakarta which ends sometime around june so the next couple of days specifically the forecast is calling for severe thunderstorms in the region so heavy rains difficult terrain it will be difficult to find anything in the area which is what is going to make this search difficult. he's almost over the latest on this breaking news story about the missing russian sukhoi superjet thank you very much. thank you for joining us here on our. breaking news story for you now a brand new russian passenger plane the sukhoi superjet one hundred has gone

missing during a flight. with fifty people on board authorities in jakarta for the craft but the operations being complicated by nightfall. officials say the plane may have crashed but they are not ruling out a possible hijacking and here we have a pictures of the line posted by russians. who are supposed to be on the flight. on the ground at the super sales pitch in asia and was carrying out its second demonstration flight of the day the crew is russian but there are also international passengers on board and mostly indonesians. are focusing around thirty two miles away from do stay with us here for the latest on this developing story.