Tomorrow, Russia will hold its annual Victory Day parade in Moscow to celebrate Russia’s victory over the Nazis. Russia has always celebrated this day but since he came to power, Putin has really put his stamp on it.
Across his years in power, Putin has put a particular emphasis on the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in what Russians call the “Great Patriotic War,” a grounding pillar of national identity.
Putin himself re-introduced military hardware to the annual celebration back in 2008, showing off Russia’s stockpiles of tanks and munitions in a shift toward a more aggressive posture…
“It’s a holiday that has always been widely celebrated in Russia, but Putin has appropriated it,” said political analyst Kirill Rogov, who runs Russia-focused think tank Re: Russia. “And in that sense, this holiday has become Putin’s holiday, and that of his militaristic and imperialist politics.”
However, this year’s parade is going to be notably smaller than in previous years. There are multiple reasons for that but the most important are Russia’s struggling economy and the fear that Ukraine might target military hardware in the parade. To deal with both problems, Putin has decided to scale things down.
“It will be the strangest Victory Day of the Putin era,” exiled Russian journalist Dmitry Kolezev remarked in a recent podcast.
For the first time since 2007…there will be no tanks or missile launchers rolling through Red Square.
Instead of Soviet-style military flexing, Muscovites are being treated to a different historical reenactment, namely a return to the pre-digital age.
Text messages and mobile internet have been shut down as authorities brace for possible Ukrainian drone attacks, disrupting everything from taxis and food delivery to ATMs and contactless payments.
In some 27 Russian cities, parades have been canceled altogether.
All of this looks bad for a guy who survives as an autocratic strongman. The not-so-subtle message coming from the Kremlin is that they are afraid, afraid of Ukrainian drones which have recently been lighting up parts of Russia’s oil infrastructure. Even more worrisome, some drones are now hitting targets near the Kremlin.
A Ukrainian drone hit an upmarket residential high-rise in Moscow in the early hours of Monday, resulting in no casualties but causing visible damage to the façade of the building.
It was the third night in a row that the Russian capital came under attack from drones, days before Russia holds a scaled-back 9 May parade to mark the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
An unverified video circulating on social media showed firemen entering a heavily damaged flat covered in dust and rubble and with blown-out windows, while another showed drone debris strewn across the street below…
The residential building that was hit is located in an upscale neighbourhood in south-west Moscow, less than 10km (six miles) from the Kremlin and Red Square, where Saturday’s parade will be held.
Today, President Trump announced he’d helped secure a brief truce.
I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine. The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II. This Ceasefire will include a suspension of all kinetic activity, and also a prison swap of 1,000 prisoners from each Country. This request was made directly by me, and I very much appreciate its agreement by President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War. Talks are continuing on ending this Major Conflict, the biggest since World War II, and we are getting closer and closer every day. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Ukraine apparently agreed to give Putin a break because it wanted the prisoner swap.
The news was confirmed by both the Kremlin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the latter saying the prisoner exchange would be “in the format of 1,000 for 1,000.”
“Red Square is less important to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners who can be brought home,” Zelensky said.
So it looks like Putin will have his shrunken parade but only because he’s giving Ukraine something it wants in trade. Even the number of journalists on hand has been reduced this year.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied on Friday that international journalists had their accreditation revoked, instead saying the number of journalists who could attend was limited due to the curtailed format of this year’s parade.
“This year, since the entire ceremony is somewhat limited, the number of journalists allowed is also limited,” Peskov said, adding “there has not been a single case of anyone being stripped of their accreditation.”
And yet several international journalists, including CNN, who were accredited to attend the parade, were told by the Kremlin on Thursday that they were no longer able to do so.
He’s lying of course. It sounds to me like they don’t really want the rest of the world to see just how scaled down this parade is going to be.
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