Tanks roll during Thursday’s rehearsal for the May 9 Victory Day parade in Palace Square in St.Petersburg, Russia.
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Tanks roll during Thursday’s rehearsal for the May 9 Victory Day parade in Palace Square in St.Petersburg, Russia.
Dmitri Lovetsky / AP
MOSCOW – Russians will celebrate Victory Day on Monday, an annual event to mark the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, which has fueled more intrigue and imports this year because Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Under Russian President Vladimir Putin, the May 9 event has grown in size and political prominence, with a Soviet-style parade on Moscow’s Red Square with a speech by the president. system.
This year’s Victory Day comes amid speculation, both in Russia and in the West, that Putin is eager to announce at least one symbolic victory in Ukraine. A big question is whether – or how – Putin can try to galvanize the Russians and rekindle the Soviet Union’s past glory and sacrifice with a new call to fight against it. what he declared was the “neo-Nazi” regime in Ukraine.
The Kremlin insists that what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine is going “as planned.” Two months later, Western security officials say that Moscow has struggle to achieve its goal. With some victories quite evident, some Russians fear that Putin might take the opportunity to declare a total nationwide mobilization and officially declare war, against not only Ukraine but perhaps other countries as well. other countries in the West.
Russia took a step to capture Mariupol
Clues to the Kremlin’s triumphant optical search may lie in last week’s visit by senior official Sergei Kiriyenko to the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol. A bag of Ukrainian resistance still inside the local steel millbut Putin has officially announced Russia’s control of Mariupol, unleashed a flurry of Russian state media into the city.
Russian naval cadets take part in rehearsals for the Victory Day parade in Sevastopol, Crimea, on May 5. The parade will take place there on May 9 to commemorate the Soviet Union’s defeat of Germany commune during World War II.
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Russian naval cadets take part in rehearsals for the Victory Day parade in Sevastopol, Crimea, on May 5. The parade will take place there on May 9 to commemorate the Soviet Union’s defeat of Germany commune during World War II.
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In front of the camera, Kiriyenko, Putin’s deputy chief of staff, inaugurating a statue depicts an elderly Ukrainian woman whom Russian state media has turned into a symbol of Ukraine’s support for the Russian military. The woman, called Babushka Anya, is seems to be filmed by Ukrainian soldiers as she salutes them with a Soviet banner, mistakenly thinking they were Russian. In the video, she refuses food provided by the military after she realizes they are Ukrainian.
Ms. Kiriyenko claimed to be “a living symbol of the continuity of generations and the ongoing war against Nazism and fascism”, while echoing Putin’s claim that the Russian army in Ukraine to “denuclearize” the country. “She became the grandmother of all Donbas and the grandmother of all Russia.”
Kiriyenko’s presence in Mariupol comes in the Russian context news report that the Kremlin adviser – who normally oversees domestic politics – has been tasked with politically integrating the Ukrainian lands as they fall into the hands of Russian forces.
Putin realizes Independence of Ukraine’s separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the hours before Russia decided to send troops into Ukraine in February. At the time, Putin justified the move as a humanitarian mission to protect Russian-speaking people in the region. Western intelligence agencies say the Kremlin may now seek annexation of territories as a possible solution.
People walk through the tunnel of stars set up to decorate Russia’s Victory Day in central Moscow on Thursday. Russia will hold its annual military parade in Red Square on May 9.
Alexander Nemenov / AFP via Getty Images
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People walk through the tunnel of stars set up to decorate Russia’s Victory Day in central Moscow on Thursday. Russia will hold its annual military parade in Red Square on May 9.
Alexander Nemenov / AFP via Getty Images
The Kremlin has warned of the possibility of wider conflict
Russia’s recent focus on Ukraine’s parts of the eastern Donbas region has slowed as the United States and its European allies increase arms shipments and other assistance to Ukraine.
The Russian military targeted those shipments as the Kremlin did warning and criticism escalateargues that military aid risks military confrontation between Russia and NATO powers.
Emphasizing this message, Russia on Wednesday conducted exercises simulate a tactical nuclear attack to its west is Kaliningrad, bordering the European Union.
Putin previously warned about “fast like lightning“retaliation if the West intervenes directly in the Ukraine conflict – the latest in a kind of amplified rhetoric that has suggested that Putin is seeking to build public consensus for a war.” More broadly, when asked if Putin would officially declare war on Ukraine on May 9, a Kremlin spokesman called the idea of ”nonsense.”
Parade preparations are underway in Moscow
In recent days, Russia’s armed forces have been rehearsing for a military parade on Red Square, which has become a renaissance of Soviet military traditions from the Putin era.
Every May 9, Russians celebrate the 1945 end of the Great Patriotic War, in which more than 20 million Soviet citizens died at home and abroad. Celebrations and parades take place in dozens of Russian cities.
It appears that Moscow’s military performance on Monday could be scaled back from previous years to reflect the war in Ukraine, based on a statement by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. However, Shoigu said the parade would include 11,000 troops and display 77 aircraft and 131 vehicles, including Russia’s latest missile launchers.
The Russian air force has promised to conduct celebratory runs in the formation of the letter Z – the letter used to mark Russian troops in Ukraine. The letter Z has also emerged as a controversial symbol of both support for the Russian military and the intimidation of dissenting voices at home.
A plane from the Soviet era known as the Flying Kremlin will also appear. It is a presidential airborne command center used in the event of a nuclear attack on Russia.
Meanwhile, at the bottom, there will be Putin and his speech – with the president’s most staunch supporters sure their leader will find the right words.
Andrei, 60, a Red Square tour guide who is nervous about revealing his full name to a Western journalist, said: “Victory will come, but not until we defeated all the Nazis in Ukraine.
“Putin is a smart man,” he added as the fighters flew in formation marching overhead. “He won’t claim anything without a real win.”
Charles Maynes reported from Moscow; Alina Selyukh contributed to this story from Washington, DC
