Taking part in the event were the wives and family members of military servicemen who lost their lives while performing their military duties, and officers and senior officers who have taken part in past meetings with the President over the years.
Among the people attending the event were, in particular, servicemen who took part in the Moscow-Chechnya flight in an SU-27-UB plane in March 2000, the MAKS Aerospace Show in Zhukovsky, near Moscow, and servicemen serving on the submarines Archangelsk and Yekaterinburg and the cruiser Peter the Great.
Also attending the event were Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, the Speakers of both houses of parliament, the Presidents of the Constitutional, Supreme, and Supreme Arbitration Courts, the Prosecutor General, the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, the First Deputy Prime Ministers and Ministers, the Directors of Federal Agencies and the Commanders-in-Chief of the different branches of the Armed Forces.