Guest post from Mike Murtagh.

It’s that time of year when we commemorate the victory of the Allied Forces over Hitler’s Germany, this year marking the 80^th Anniversary. I was fortunate enough to have been involved in the commemorative events – even if it was at a humble level – that were held 30 years ago in Moscow to mark the 50^th Anniversary. It was a massive international wing-ding with representatives from the highest-levels of many world governments, including the likes of President Bill Clinton, not to mention our own Prime Minister at the time, John Major.

I had arrived on my posting to the Defence Section of the British Embassy in Moscow just a few weeks earlier, so it was all a bit hectic in the Embassy’s efforts to organise the UK’s representation at the commemorative events.

I was behind the scenes on the day, ensuring the arrangements for the UK representatives went as smoothly as possible. There had been city-wide rehearsals involving all arms of the Russian military. The photo accompanying this blogpost was taken from my apartment. It shows one of the assembly areas for Russian armoured vehicles that were participating in the Grand Parade through Central Moscow.

It was all a bit intense, both in the preparatory phase and on the day itself. For my own part, some events stick in the mind – sweeping through the gates of The Kremlin with the Defence Attache in his car for my first visit there and visiting Boris Yeltsin’s outer office, for example. At such times, I could never quite get over the fact that this working-class Swansea boy was involved in high-level international activity, no matter how peripheral my role was. I was there with a part to play.

I was deputed to collect the UK’s wreath, to be laid by the Prime Minister at the Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier, from a Central Moscow florist’s. It was a weird feeling, and it took a little getting used to, to be traipsing around the Russian capital in my smartest No.1 uniform of the armed forces of a NATO country.

Defence Section was responsible for seeing to the arrangements for the attendance of UK military VIPs, such as the Chief Of Defence Staff (CDS), Field-Marshal Sir Peter Inge, in this case. Going to and from Vnukovo Airport in blue-light convoys to meet and collect CDS went without incident and all concerned seemed happy with our arrangements and The Big Day went off without incident.

Well, there were a couple of potential mishaps involving my putting the Prime Minister’s aircraft at risk of being shot down and my potentially causing a diplomatic incident with the Russian CDS. Oops! And I had only been in post for a couple of weeks! The full story is told in Spying On The Kremlin.

I know I did not imagine half of what I had already experienced when I went through Cranwell fourteen years previously – or through any of my postings leading up to this one. Just as well it was my last RAF posting. The sort of postings I could have looked forward to would have bored me stiff!

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