MOSCOW — In a day of mourning and pageantry reminiscent of Russia's powerful past, world leaders gathered yesterday under a towering Soviet emblem in Red Square to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

On the same stand where Josef Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev reviewed troops trained to fight American soldiers, President Bush sat in the place of honor next to Russian President Vladimir Putin as 7,000 servicemen marched in crisp parade formation to the tolling of the Kremlin bells, the roar of military chants and the flapping of the red hammer-and-sickle banners that for decades after the war symbolized Russia's enmity with its wartime allies.

Gray-haired veterans waved red flowers from truck beds, their chests brimming with medals and ribbons, their faces etched with the wear and tear of hard lives.

The day of the allied victory in Europe, the Russian president told more than 50 world leaders and 4,000 war veterans gathered near Vladimir Lenin's tomb, "marks the day that the world was saved."

"The lessons of the war send us the warning that indifference, temporizing and playing accomplice to violence inevitably lead to tragedies on a planetary scale," Putin said. "Faced with the real threat of terrorism today ... it is our duty to defend a world order based on security and justice and on a new culture of relations among nations that will not allow a repeat of any war, neither 'cold' nor 'hot.' "

The Soviet Union paid the heaviest price of all the triumphant allies — nearly 27 million soldiers and citizens killed in what is remembered here as the Great Patriotic War.

Absent from the pomp were the tanks and missiles that accompanied Soviet parades in the Cold War years. White House officials described the event as understated compared with past displays of military might, and said Bush was comfortable in a setting that included swooping Russian military jets and flags bearing Lenin's image.

Not long after Bush's departure for the former Soviet republic of Georgia, tanks did roll into Red Square for a dazzling song, dance and light spectacle that included a re-enactment of the World War II battles of Moscow and Stalingrad, along with folk dancing, grand waltzes and a fireworks display.

Russia's two days of celebrations virtually closed down central Moscow and allowed the nation to temporarily recapture the glory of a time when the Red Army helped bring Germany to its knees and threatened the United States with nuclear annihilation.

Clearly, that loss of world stature has been much on Putin's mind.

Overseeing a depleted army, a nation with millions in poverty and a former empire increasingly dominated by Western-leaning democracies, the Russian president recently described the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century."

Yet in a sign that Russia is committed to burying the enmity of the past if not the grandeur, Putin and Bush chatted pleasantly during the parade and posed for a smiling photo with their wives before taking their seats.

The two governments reported they were near agreement on a long-disputed legal protocol that would clear the way for millions of dollars of continued U.S. assistance in dismantling Russian nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Throughout his roughly 24-hour visit, Bush was careful to keep any criticism of Putin's increasingly authoritarian policies out of the public view during an event whose purpose, White House officials said, was celebratory.

Away from the parade, however, Bush found a way to show support for Russians who are struggling against Putin's consolidation of power.

At his Moscow hotel, the president met privately with 18 representatives of media and advocacy groups, and gave three of them a few minutes to address him directly.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, co-founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group human-rights organization, expressed her concerns about Russian democracy and cited the Kremlin's attack on Yukos Oil and its shareholders.

The meeting heartened her and other attendees. "It was important," Alexeyeva said afterward, "because it was a sign to our authorities that the attitude of the United States, at the very top, is supportive" of groups like hers.

World leaders, including German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao, trooped with Bush and Putin after the parade to lay a large wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, then attended meetings before last night's spectacle in Red Square.

Outside the city center, tens of thousands of Muscovites flocked to city parks for concerts, dances and celebrations. Under the towering World War II monument at Victory Park, hundreds of elderly veterans strolled along the wide paths as passers-by rushed up to have their photos taken with them, or to hand them small bouquets.

"Thank you for what you did for us. ... You are so beautiful," a middle-age woman said softly to Vladimir Makarov, 86, a former tank officer.

"No, I'm old," he replied with a grin. "You should have seen me when I was young."

The celebrations were largely dry, as the military backed up Putin's pledge to drive away the rain.

Russian news agencies said the air force had sent up 11 planes to seed the clouds with chemical dispersal agents, a procedure refined over decades of grand state occasions and used to guarantee a sunny Olympic Games in 1980.

But as the 10 a.m. time for the military parade approached, with organizers nervously consulting their watches, black clouds drew over Red Square and rain grew heavier. Putin greeted a string of arriving dignitaries huddled under umbrellas.

All that, however, changed as Bush and his wife, Laura, walked the 50 yards from the Kremlin gates to the Red Square tribune to take up their seat alongside Putin.

The rain died away, the clouds cleared, the sun came out and Russian organizers were home free ... and dry.

Bush did some celebrating of his own later in the Georgian capital.

He had been roasted just days ago by his own wife as a dullard who goes to bed too early. But upon his arrival in Tbilisi last night, Bush was suddenly overcome with the pulsating rhythms of local bands, throwing his hands in the air and gyrating his hips.

The image was carried live on Georgian television and replayed repeatedly.

Bush's public dance steps usually consist of 45-second waltzes at inaugural balls — not the kind of hip action that Georgians witnessed on a cobblestone square in front of a 13th-century church in the capital's old town area.

"Dancers told me that they liked his rhythm," Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said later. "He was much better than I would ever be."

Compiled from reports by the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Reuters.