Global Courant 2023-05-09 20:55:20
Victory Day was one of the most important celebrations in the Soviet Union. Moscow chose to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 on May 9, a day later than the West, because it was already after midnight in the Soviet capital when the instrument of surrender was signed in defeated Berlin.
For Russian President Vladimir Putin, Victory Day is also at the heart of the secular religion he has spent the past 23 years building power—the belief that Russia is both invincible and just.
But this year’s Victory Day celebrations highlight how Putin’s cult laid the groundwork for its own defeat. There are two reasons for this: first, the Russian president cast his war against Ukraine as a continuation of the just struggle honored on Victory Day, but failed to sustain this fallacy; and second, the failure of its unjust and bloody war allows Ukraine and other Eastern European countries to reclaim the story of World War II victory.
It cannot be underestimated how important the cult of Victory Day has been to Putin’s propaganda and the legitimacy of his regime. Over the past 20 years, the Victory Day parade has grown in splendor.
Putin reintroduced some Soviet traditions, including displaying large military hardware at major Victory Day parades; he has also embraced the so-called “immortal regiment” marches, in which citizens attend mass processions carrying portraits of their ancestors who fought in World War II.
Since 2014, the Kremlin has combined this public commemoration with propaganda portraying Ukraine as the heirs of the Nazi regime. Even the Victory Museum in Moscow combines the story of the Great Patriotic War – as World War II is known in Russia – with that of the conflict in Ukraine.
But while there are undoubtedly people in Russia who have been sucked into this story, the events of the past year have seriously undermined it.
You only have to look at the number of Russians who fled the country in the past year. Estimates show there are between 500,000 and a million – more than have met the mandatory draft that Putin had to draw up last September due to the lack of volunteers to fight “the Nazis” in Ukraine.
The apparent lack of enthusiasm among the Russian population for the ‘special military operation’ – as the Kremlin initially called it – also forced Putin to use mercenaries.
The most significant battle of the past six months – that for the besieged city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region – has been fought by recruits from the private military company Wagner, owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, also known as “Putin’s cook”.
In recent days, Prigozhin made public his disputes with the Defense Ministry and threatened to withdraw from that fight if his troops were not supplied with sufficient military supplies. The public row was probably little more than an attempt to cover up the fact that neither Prigozhin nor the army command have a major victory in Bakhmut or elsewhere to present to Putin for Victory Day.
Even worse, ahead of this year’s celebration, Russia appears unable to secure its own territory. At least six Russian regions canceled their marches, warning they could be targets of Ukrainian attacks. Even the immortal regimental march of Moscow – in which Putin himself took part last year – has been called off.
At the start of the large-scale invasion, the Kremlin had claimed that Kiev would be taken within three days. But 440 days later, the Russian army and its mercenaries look no closer to victory – not even in Bakhmut.
However, Putin shows no signs of revising his strategy. He has gone too far and made the legitimacy of his rule depend on the conflict in Ukraine. He continues to believe that he can wait for Western support for Kiev. But this wait-and-see game carries its own risks for Putin as the war in Ukraine erodes his legitimacy.
Elsewhere in the post-Soviet space, a new story of Victory Day is emerging, one truly cemented to its original spirit of resistance to fascist aggression. On the eve, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed that Ukraine celebrate the victory over Nazism together with other European countries on May 8 and celebrate Europe Day on May 9.
A greater percentage of Ukraine’s population was killed in World War II than Russia. Kiev today has every right to claim the legacy of the fight against fascism by opposing Putin’s invasion, and it has a coalition of international support to rival that of the Allies in the 1940s.
Other Eastern European countries, such as Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria, have also abolished the Communist-era Victory Day celebration on May 9 and instead celebrated it on May 8, along with other EU countries. They, too, challenge the Kremlin’s attempt to revive Soviet-era narratives of war and downplay their own contributions to defeating Nazism.
This is an important process that directly calls into question not only Putin’s propaganda, but also his claim to legitimacy.
Leading up to his full-scale invasion, Putin complained that the West had turned the country into an “anti-Russia” and claimed that Ukrainian troops were trying to eradicate Russian language, culture and history with Western help.
His claims of ethnic cleansing have, of course, turned out to be a lie. The hostile reception Russian-speaking Ukrainians gave to Russian soldiers dismantled this myth. But Putin was right about one thing: that Ukraine is turning into an “anti” Russia, specifically an anti-Putinist Russia.
By starting his war in Ukraine and continuing the mortal struggle with little regard for Russian lives, Putin laid the groundwork for his own demise. Not only does he lose any claim to the Victory Day mantle, but he also passes it on to those who oppose his regime.
Future Victory Days will celebrate the defeat of both Nazi Germany and Putin’s Russia.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.
