Heavy rain fell half an hour before the parade was due to start, with Russian President Vladimir Putin sheltering under a black umbrella to greet guests, then eased off, with patches of blue sky emerging just minutes before the parade got under way.

Since dawn, 11 Ilyushin-18 and Antonov-12 planes had been seeding chemical dispersal agents into the bad weather upwind of Moscow, Air Force Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky told state-run ITAR-TASS news agency.

The planes flew between 3,000 and 8,000 metres (10,000 and 25,000 feet) height between 50 and 150 kilometres (30 and 90 miles) from the capital.

Russian parade organisers have decades of experience, dating back to the Soviet era, in ensuring perfect weather conditions.