“Today, you are defending what our fathers, forefathers and great-grandparents fought for,” Putin said in a speech before a military rally on Monday, accompanied by World War II veterans at the May 9 Victory Day celebrations in Germany. This year’s exhibition includes 11,000 troops and weapons including tanks, air defense systems and nuclear weapons. Scheduled flight of military aircraft and helicopters have been canceled due to climate change, reports state news agency Tass, quoting Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Some Western officials have suggested that Putin may use World War II to officially declare war on the Kremlin, calling it a “special military operation.” This will allow Russia to plan for mass mobilization, which may help launch a suspended campaign. The Kremlin has denied such plans and Putin did not mention them in his speech.
He is fighting for the fatherland, the future, so that no one will forget the lessons of World War II, so that there will be no place for murderers, persecutors and Nazis, ”Putin said. He stressed that the conflict with Ukraine and NATO, the countries that supply Ukraine with weapons, was “inevitable,” saying plans were under way to attack the Russian-led Donbas and invade Crimea, a Black Sea coast seized by the Kremlin in 2014. Ukraine and its allies reject that.
Putin’s victory over the Soviet Union in what is known as Russia’s Great War, in which 27 million citizens of the Soviet Union died, marking his efforts to stir up patriotic feelings. This year, as tens of thousands of soldiers fighting in Ukraine and Russia face unprecedented sanctions from the US and its allies, the event has taken on even greater significance. Putin said Russia is fighting “neo Nazis @ in Ukraine, Kyiv and its allies are destroying it.
This war was presented as a war of remembrance of WWII, a war against ‘Nazis’ and Nazi dignitaries, a war to allow the ‘honorable’ Russians and ‘honorable’ Ukrainians to remember the 1945 victory in a ‘right’ way (that is, the Russian way), “said Jade McGlynn, an expert Russian at Oxford University.
The Russian leader, who invaded Ukraine after his pro-Western leadership approached closer ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has so far failed to make significant progress in the war as the US and Europe gather arms in the Kyiv war. The former Soviet Union now acquires heavy weapons, including tanks and ammunition.
To date, the end of Putin’s major military victory has not been limited to the incomplete collapse of the port city south of Mariupol after weeks of siege and bombings that killed at least 20,000 civilians, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian troops continue to fight in the main metropolitan area of Azovstal.
This year’s parade in Moscow is smaller than in recent years and the Kremlin has not invited any foreign leaders. In 2005, as Russia celebrated 60 years of World War II, more than 50 foreign leaders attended, including United States President George W. Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
Ahead of the Moscow event, state TV showed military demonstrations in small towns around Russia, marking May 9 as a public holiday. Putin’s closest ally, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who has allowed his territory to be used for the offensive, has settled in his capital Minsk to oversee WWII victory celebrations. In an interview with the Associated Press published last week, Lukashenko acknowledged that the Russian invasion had “delayed” longer than he had expected.
In April, Russia withdrew its attempts to seize Kyiv and overthrow Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelenskiy and move to southeastern Ukraine. Yet again, its invasion has stalled, and it has so far failed to seize control of the Kremlin-backed east of the Donbas or to occupy the south coast.
The Russian campaign is very cautious about going back and forth as they win and lose, said a NATO official. However, Putin is not discouraged and believes he can win, said the official. Without announcing the mass gathering as Ukraine does, Russia will see a balance of power towards Ukraine, said Michael Kofman, a Russian military analyst. Russia has tried to take over the major war in Europe with the power of the peacekeeping war. A lot is now over about the success of the war, ”Kofman said in a statement released by the Atlantic Council. “They are short of Manpower.”
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