Victory Day has become a reminder for Russian society of the stagnation of its “special military operation” against Ukraine. This Thursday, Vladimir Putin presided over his third military parade in Moscow’s Red Square since he ordered his armed forces to take kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. The Great Patriotic War, the triumph over the Third Reich in World War II, took the Soviet Union four years. “Russia is going through a difficult transition period. The destiny of the country, its future, depends on each one of us,” Putin has lectured his troops from the pulpit, where the presence of international leaders could be counted on the fingers of both hands.
The cold and a snowfall in the middle of May did not help the military parade shine. Nor that it fell on a Thursday and the Russians could enjoy four days of long weekend, nor that other parallel events were suspended for security reasons both in Moscow and in the rest of the country. Very few people came to see the vehicles march through the center of the capital, where the authorities suspended the so-called parade for the first time. Immortal Regiment. This initiative, a citizen march with portraits of grandparents and parents who suffered during World War II, arose spontaneously last decade, but ended up being appropriated and politicized by the Russian authorities.
The “most sacred” day in Russia was in other years an exhibition of force by the Russian army. However, on this occasion the only armored car that crossed Red Square was an old T-34 from World War II, which was followed by about six dozen vehicles, most of them armored transports — the Tigr-M, Taifun-K and several BTR- and several missile launch systems that are currently carrying out bombings in Ukraine: the next-generation S-400 anti-aircraft missile, the 9K720 Iskander hypersonic missile launcher and the spearhead of the Russian nuclear forces, the Yars ballistic rocket system.
“Russia will do everything possible to avoid a global conflict, but at the same time we will not allow anyone to threaten us. Our strategic forces are always ready for combat,” Putin has declared in his second threat this week. The president ordered this Monday that the second line of his nuclear forces, the units capable of launching tactical bombs to try to subdue the rival through the terror of a nuclear catastrophe, carry out new military exercises “shortly.”
In addition to the absence of armored cars, many foot units that paraded in 2022 did not do so this year. The only big novelty has been the air show with 15 devices despite the inclement weather.
Problems supplying the front could have prompted the Kremlin to mention the nuclear card. Satellite images of Russian weapons depots analyzed by the Institute for the Study of War suggest that Moscow is “largely” sustaining its war effort “with material removed from depots rather than the scaled-up manufacture of weapons.” and vehicles.”
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There is no family in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and other eastern countries that would not have had or suffered the loss of a loved one on the front during World War II. Today, the Kremlin tries to draw a historical thread between the pain caused by Hitler’s Germany with its invasion of Ukraine to justify it. “Revanchism, mocking history, the desire to justify the current followers of the Nazis, are part of the policy of Western elites to incite more and more regional conflicts,” Putin said.
Wink to China
The Russian leader rewrites history to justify his expansionist ambition. “During the first three long and difficult years of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union fought the Nazis almost one on one while almost all of Europe worked for the military power of the Wehrmacht,” Putin said. By the time the USSR invasion began in June 1941 on the borders of what was Poland two years earlier, the United Kingdom was already resisting the scourge of the Luftwaffe, French partisans were fighting underground, and in the Balkans and Africa confronted Hitler’s war machine.
The president also winked at Beijing, his main economic and political support in his military campaign against Ukraine. “We remember the courage of the people of China, who fought for their independence against the aggression of militarist Japan,” Putin emphasized in a jab against Tokyo. The tension with the Japanese country is increasing. The Kremlin has strengthened its military collaboration with the North Korean regime, which supplies it in exchange for ammunition, and Japan has sent aid to Ukraine. And in the background is the dispute over the Kuril Islands, taken by the USSR in World War II. Moscow has recently banned foreign ships from passing through its waters.
The Kremlin did not invite the leaders of countries it considers “unfriendly” for not supporting its offensive on Ukraine. However, it did not have a massive representation from the rest of the world either. Present in the guest gallery were the leaders of the five Central Asian republics with which Moscow maintains close economic and political relations, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, and four other allied countries: Belarus, Cuba, Laos and Guinea-Bissau.
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