MOSCOW – It was one of the biggest public war celebrations Russia has seen since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – a crowd filled the country’s biggest stadium, cheering images of destruction and songs about bloodshed and conquest of Ukraine.
Formally, the event is tied to Russia’s annual Defenders of the Fatherland holiday, honoring veterans, but taking place two days before the anniversary of the invasion, it serves as a show. television program showing public support for the war, the armed forces that waged it, and the people. behind it is President Vladimir V. Putin.
“I love it!” Aleksandr, 47 years old said, a lawyer from Moscow, who waved a flag in the stands while a performer rapped about Ukrainian territories that Mr. Putin claimed to have annexed last year. “I don’t see how I could not support it,” he said of a war the Kremlin forbids people to call war, calling it “a special military operation.”
The elaborate concerts and demonstrations romanticized the Russian army and the war; While the performers sang, screens throughout the stadium did not show them, but instead played videos of soldiers fighting and firing heavy weapons, and destroying buildings. Next to the entrance to the stadium, volunteers sew camouflage net.
In military uniform, Lieutenant Nikolai Romanenko, performed a rap “remix” features the hit World War II song “Katyusha,” with updated lyrics to include, “I’m not afraid to get my hands bloody up to my elbows.”
Another performed a rap-ballad about “the demons buried in Azovstal,” Ukrainian fighters who have held out for weeks at a steel mill in Mariupol, including lyrics in Ukrainian, with a video mocking Ukrainian women begging to evacuate their husbands, sons and brothers.
Grigory Leps, one of Russia’s most famous pop singers, sang a song that combined the World War II recruitment slogan “Fatherland: Mother is Calling” with a contemporary pro-war chorus ” We do not abandon ourselves.”
Collectively, the celebrations at Luzhniki Stadium reflect the Kremlin’s campaign to normalize the war for the Russian people, a tacit admission that it won’t end anytime soon. The event even had some accounts of Russian casualties, though not their large scale.
“They are trying to militarize society as a whole,” said Grigory B. Yudin, a professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Economic and Social Sciences, who did not attend the event.
Tickets are free, mostly distributed to government employees and students, who are given a day off from work or study and are provided with transportation. Matvey, 19, a university student from the city of Tambov, said several buses from two universities there took more than eight hours each way to get to the concert. Several attendees from the Moscow area said they were encouraged to go by their employers.
“Everybody was sent there, forced to attend; we have reports on that from many universities,” said Professor Yudin.
“Putin coerces people, entices them to participate, and these students are promised to pass the exams for free,” he continued. “He wanted the whole country to be fully mobilized and total passivity, a total acceptance,” an approach he described as “schizophrenic.”
The 81,000-seater stadium appeared to be packed despite temperatures well below freezing, with people in the aisles and on the field, and thousands of others in the outer areas. And for many of them – at least those willing to speak to an American journalist – the enthusiasm seemed real, even as they were moved by the war’s losses.
Katya, 26, who works for a cosmetic medicine clinic in the Moscow region, said of the fight: “I support that, because this is the right time to start this. She cited what she called the suffering of many friends from Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where Moscow’s separatist proxies began fighting Kyiv eight years before Russia’s all-out invasion last year. .
But Katya admitted that she wished the war was over and said that one of her college classmates was killed. This is a sensitive topic — any criticism of the war could lead to a prison sentence — and she, like several others interviewed, declined to give her last name.
“I don’t understand why it became so alluring,” she said. “It’s a pity: Everyone in their family had at least some dead acquaintances.”
Though pro-war, she expressed surprise at the enthusiasm surrounding her on Wednesday, tacitly acknowledging how artificial such public performances can be.
“What impressed me most was that I could see people actually coming in, not being forced,” she said. “I came here voluntarily myself.”
Her husband Stanislav, 31, received tickets to the event from his work and says he’s glad he came. “It was emotional,” he said.
The MCs of the concert shared stories of some Russian soldiers who fought and fell in Ukraine and invited their loved ones to the stage. The Kremlin has not acknowledged the scale of Russia’s casualties – some 200,000 were killed or wounded, Western officials said – and has generally avoided releasing the names of those killed.
Boris I. Lugin talks about the death of his son Anatoly in battle. “Our mission is to do everything to win: Every beat of our hearts for victory, every beat,” he told the crowd. “This is how I live my life. A soldier’s father.”
A children’s choir sang a song, “Congratulations Soldiers,” written as a message to soldiers on the front lines, patterned after letters Russian schoolchildren were asked to write. homework.
Another group of children from occupied Mariupol were brought on stage, along with a soldier named Yuri L. Gagarin, code-named “Angel”, who was credited with saving 367 children from the city. devastated — though not explained how. . As images of the devastation played on the screens, not to mention the Russian bombardment that had leveled much of the city – the little children on the stage had their ears covered.
Ukraine and human rights groups say Russia has steal thousands of children from occupied territory and killed countless civilians in Mariupol and elsewhere. But no one on stage asked about the parents of these children. An MC encouraged the children to hug Mr. Gagarin, who was awarded the “Mard of Courage” for his service in the army, to thank him.
“These are our children, and we, the Russian Army, must protect these people and these children,” said Gagarin, whose name resembles that of the first man in space, Yuri A. Gagarin, a hero to many Russians. “We are a strong army; We are a powerful army. But your support is important to us. We are together; we will win.”
That was also the message that every speaker at the event delivered: Social solidarity and support for the military from all walks of life is essential.
Putin appeared briefly, acknowledging discord as people “gathered for a festive event” while soldiers were fighting and dying, and encouraged all Russians to join the war effort. .
“Even children who write letters to our warriors at the front are very important,” he said. “All of our people are defenders of the Fatherland.”
Anna Vasilyevna, 87, who attended the concert from Solnechnogorsk, 45 miles from Moscow, said her father died in World War II. She fully supports Mr. Putin, because “it’s the same now as it was then,” she said, echoing Kremlin propaganda that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was like the Soviet Union’s fight against the Nazis. .
As she left the stadium, she passed an exhibition about “Heroes and Brave Actions”. On one side of the plaque are World War II heroes. On the other hand, pictures and descriptions of people who died during the invasion of Ukraine.
“And now we have the same heroes,” she said.
Alina Lobzina reporting contributions from London, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia.
