Inflatable balloon effigies of US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin kissed last Saturday during Amsterdam’s WorldPride 2026 Canal Parade. The event also featured a memorial for the victims of the recent Berlin Pride attack as well as performances by beloved pop divas Madonna and Kylie Minogue.
The balloons, entitled “The Kissing Couple,” showed Trump wearing a blouse and skirt and Putin wearing overalls; both had pursed lips and held tulips behind their back. People on the boat held signs, including ones that read, “Nobody kisses better than me. Believe me,” “Kiss for peace,” “Grab me by the [cat image],” “Come on, kiss and tell!” and “Kiss the person next to you!”
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“We did not want to provoke, but to pause power for a moment and highlight something human,” the organizers of “The Kissing Couple” said of their balloons, according to PinkNews.
The balloon display was on one of about 80 boats in the canal parade seen by hundreds of thousands of World Pride attendees. Other boats showcased the local lesbian, leather, and cannabis communities, organizations promoting international transgender pride, as well as various companies and health groups.
The Netherlands’ out gay Prime Minister, Rob Jetten, also made history this weekend as the first prime minister in the country’s history to appear on one of the parade’s boats.
The WorldPride event also included a memorial honoring victims of the Berlin Pride attack, which happened on the evening of Saturday, July 25. A driver plowed a van into a crowd of pedestrians and attacked individuals near the Brandenburg Gate and Tiergarten park during the city’s Christopher Street Day Pride celebrations, killing one woman and injuring 29 other people. The suspect in the attack died in a police shootout the following day.
Mourners, who met at the LGBTQ+ Homomonument in the heart of Amsterdam, wore dark colors and pink and listened to speeches by the city’s first and current female mayor Femke Halsema, local drag icon Jennifer Hopelezz, the head of the COC Amsterdam, the city’s pro-LGBTQ+ organization, and other local figures, including Karl Krause and Daan Colijn, a gay world-traveling couple who run the site Couple of Men.
The Homomonument, which commemorates queer victims of the Nazis during World War II, is often used for public queer gatherings, protests, and parties. Mourners at the memorial observed a moment of silence and laid flowers.
“It’s very sad. It also makes us very angry, especially because people were relaxing in the park [before the attack], after the whole parade — it was like a moment to calm down… and [enjoy] being proud,” Colijn told the Associated Press.
His partner, Krause, said, “After it happened, it just felt … shockingly scary. Why? What? How? Now? Here, in a place that is supposed to be one of the LGBTQ+ welcoming places around the world where we are supposed to be a safe space and we are attacked there, and not only one person, but the community. And that felt very intimidating.”
“Of course, we will look one more time over our shoulders just to be sure,” Krause added, “but it will in the end be still not that we stop going out. We have to show up — that’s how we change things. Not by not showing up.”
Pop star Madonna also performed for around 6,000 people in the city’s AFAS Live arena in the early hours of Sunday morning. During her 30-minute performance with the collaborating DJ Stuart Price, she welcomed Australian superstar Kylie Minogue onto the stage.
The women performed a version of Madonna’s new song, “Love Sensation”, from her chart-topping Confessions II album, and closed their set with Madonna’s past hits, “Sorry” and “Hung Up.”
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