Global Courant 2023-05-09 11:30:31
Authorities in Crimea have all but canceled Victory Day events “due to security concerns”. state media saidafter a series of apparent Ukrainian drone strikes on military bases and fuel depots on the annexed peninsula that Kiev is determined to retake.
“It’s better to take precautions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, adding that “citizens will somehow celebrate this holiday.”
But the war is increasingly being brought home to a population that the Kremlin has tried to isolate from reality.
“That is a country that is clearly on edge,” Le Beck intelligence chief Michael A. Horowitz told NBC News. “When President Putin takes the stage, everyone will have in mind the image of the drones hitting the Kremlin.”
However, the pomp will still be seen in Moscow, where soldiers are traditionally accompanied by tanks and missiles for the parade across Red Square.
Russian soldiers march to Red Square to attend a Victory Day military parade in Moscow on Tuesday.Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
Since the Soviet era, Victory Day has held immense sentimental value for Russians, honoring the sacrifice of 27 million people in the fight against Nazi Germany.
But over the decades of Putin’s rule, the Kremlin has weaponized that memory, using it to demonstrate its military prowess and send a strong message to its opponents, rather than focusing solely on memory.
Putin often invokes the Soviet Union’s victory to fuel patriotism and justify his invasion of Ukraine, which he baselessly claims is led by a Nazi government backed by the West in its attempt to destroy Russia.
The black and brown ribbon of Saint George, adopted by Russia almost 20 years ago as a symbol of remembrance, has been used and worn by Russian troops and officials operating in Ukraine.
“Victory Day is central to Putin’s story,” Horowitz said. “In the mind of the Russian president, Russia is still engaged in a long struggle against ‘Nazism’ stretching from 1941 (comfortably skipping Russia’s own settlement with Nazi Germany beforehand) to today.”
It’s a story Putin is likely to repeat in an effort to rally society behind his “special military operation,” but this is also Russia’s second victory day with no major battlefield victories in Ukraine.
Russian forces have intensified their assault on Ukrainian defenses in the small eastern city of Bakhmut.
Russia was expected to claim symbolic victory in time for Victory Day, but fierce opposition and Moscow’s own military shortcomings mean the relentless battle has only added to a sense of fragility that will be hard to avoid during Tuesday’s celebrations .
“Putin will have nothing to say,” Abbas Gallyamov, a Russian political analyst and former Putin speechwriter who fled the country, wrote on Telegram ahead of the parade. “There is no victory in sight, and without a victory – what kind of victory day is that?”
Ukrainian defenders have held their own in Bakhmut, depriving the Kremlin of a symbolic victory as proof of its grueling winter offensive.Libkos / AP
Ukraine underlined this by taking another symbolic step to distance itself from the Kremlin.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that he had signed a decree commemorating Nazi Germany’s May 8 defeat in line with his Western allies. May 9, Zelenskyy said, will be an opportunity to celebrate what he called “Europe Day,” when the countries of the European Union marking as a day of peace and unity on the continent.
The move was quickly criticized in Russia.
“By canceling Victory Day on May 9, he betrayed his ancestors once and for all,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, while Moscow-appointed Crimea leader Sergei Aksyonov said. calling it “a mean but expected” decision by Kyiv. .
