Not to be outdone by the celebration of VE Day across Western Europe yesterday, Vladimir Putin this morning staged his own ‘biggest ever’ Victory Day celebrations in Moscow. Over the course of Putin’s rule, the annual celebration of 9 May has gradually morphed from a solemn commemoration of the victory over Nazi Germany to being a key ideological cornerstone of his regime. Never one to miss a chance to send a message to Russia’s foreign adversaries, today’s 80th anniversary parade across Red Square – Putin’s 25th – was more a neat showcase of the President’s own militaristic and jingoistic ambitions than a tribute to the country’s past sacrifices.
Everything associated with the preparations for today’s event was a degree of magnitude bigger than in previous years. A three-day ceasefire in the war in Ukraine, announced by Putin last month to honour the occasion, began yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the Russian army is already reported to have broken it, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The Kremlin was clearly nervous about the potential havoc Ukrainian saboteurs could cause
In the centre of Red Square, a huge viewing platform had been erected next to, and over the top of Lenin’s tomb – quite the statement given the macabre reverence in which the site is usually held by the Kremlin. Joining Putin on the stand were the leaders of more than 20 foreign countries, notably including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, the only EU leader to have dared to make the trip.
Today’s parade also marked the first for Minister of Defence Andrei Belousov, who replaced the jaded Sergei Shoigu shortly after last year’s commemorations. More than 11,500 servicemen took part, as did parade units from 13 countries, including Belarus, Vietnam, Egypt and most strikingly China. The presence of Beijing’s leader and troops marks Xi’s most overt endorsement of Putin’s military aggression – an ominous, although not altogether unsurprising, collaboration.
Now in the fourth year of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s armed forces made substantial efforts today to quite literally bring out the big guns, after heavy losses sustained in previous years at the front meant that weapons and machinery available for traipsing across Moscow’s Red Square were noticeably lacking. In a jarring reminder of just how superficially 9 May has become a celebration of the USSR’s victory over Hitler, a stream of modern military equipment being used in Ukraine joined the parade, including BRM-1K combat reconnaissance vehicles, Giatsint-K and Malva 152-mm artillery systems and a number of drone models.
Intriguingly, for the ‘bigger and better’ mantra that clearly encapsulated the Kremlin’s planning of today’s parade, this didn’t seem to apply to Putin’s speech. The Russian President gave an uncharacteristically snappy address – one of his shortest in recent years. Paying tribute to the Soviet veterans of the second world war, he said ‘Our duty is to defend the honour of the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army’. Linking his own invasion of Ukraine to Hitler’s march on Moscow, he added, ‘fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers saved the Fatherland and have bequeathed to us the defence of the Motherland.’
In a not-so-subtle reference to Ukraine – or the ‘special military operation’ to ‘denazify’ the country, as the Kremlin has frequently described it – Putin continued: ‘Russia has been and will be an indestructible barrier to Nazism, Russophobia, anti-Semitism, and will fight the atrocities committed by the proponents of these aggressive, destructive ideas.’ The ‘entire country, society, and people’ support those fighting in Ukraine, he claimed. A poll published by the Levada Centre earlier this week would, however, beg to differ: just 30 per cent of respondents still supported the war in Ukraine – the lowest number since the invasion began in 2022. A 18-gun salute a stone’s throw away at the foot of the Kremlin marked the end of the minute’s silence that followed Putin’s speech.
Following the end of the parade, Putin descended from the stands to inspect the nervous, sweating generals of the units – including the foreign ones – represented on Red Square. One chief, starstruck or perhaps terrified, froze up, lost for words, palm stuck to his temple in salute, leading to several seconds of painful silence in front of the President and Russian state media. Putin actually reached up to the poor man’s head to prize his hand away – not without visible force – into a handshake before moving swiftly onwards.
Despite all the pomp and ceremony, the Kremlin was clearly nervous about the potential havoc Ukrainian saboteurs could cause. In a shockingly casual breach of civil liberties, Russian media began reporting yesterday that the capital’s authorities would be imposing an internet and mobile signal blackout across Moscow. This followed swarms of Ukrainian drone attacks on the capital this week, and while the communications – and even online banking – of ordinary Muscovites were apparently affected for a number of hours this morning, the parade on Red Square did seemingly go off without a hitch.
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