Vladimir Putin uses ‘cheap’ Victory Day parade to rail against West
Vladimir Putin railed against the West as he oversaw a muted parade stripped of tanks, aircraft and Russian success in Ukraine.
President Putin railed against the West as he oversaw a muted Victory Day parade stripped of three essential ingredients: tanks, aircraft and Russian success in Ukraine.
He used the annual address marking the defeat of Nazi Germany to make a series of accusations against western powers, claiming they had provoked conflict, sown hatred and destroyed family values, as he sought to make the case for his faltering war.
Hours after launching a new barrage of cruise missiles at Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, Putin accused the West of “unleashing war against Russia” after “forgetting who defeated the Nazis” and “creating a new cult of Nazism” through the destruction of Soviet memorials in eastern Europe.
He accused “globalist elites” of making the Ukrainian people “hostages to a state coup”, fostering anti-Russian nationalism and seeking the “disintegration of our country”.
In past years the annual parade was attended by a host of foreign presidents but this time Putin was accompanied only by the leaders of central Asia, Belarus and Armenia.
“Today civilisation is once again at a turning point,” he said. “We have repulsed international terrorism, we will protect the inhabitants of Donbas, we will ensure our security.”
Speaking for less than ten minutes, on a podium surrounded by decorated veterans from previous conflicts as well as the present one, he said that Russia was “proud of the participants of the special military operation” – despite their failure to take Bakhmut in time for the parade, and mounting evidence that his troops have tortured, raped and plundered their way through Ukraine.
Professor Mark Galeotti, of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London, was dismissive of the event. “Putin didn’t say much because he didn’t have anything new to say,” he suggested. “Ordinary Russians saw a small, obviously cheapened parade with a single Second World War tank and no fly-past. There was also much less of a crowd watching the parade pass by, perhaps knowing it could be their husband, brother or son they would be commemorating next year. He didn’t give any reason for hope.”
Parades went ahead in both Moscow and St Petersburg but were cancelled in at least 21 other cities over security concerns. Taxi ride-hailing applications were banned in the centre of Moscow as GPS jammers were switched on.
During the 47-minute procession a solitary T-34 tank rolled through Red Square, followed by foot soldiers, infantry vehicles and missile launchers. No new armour was on display.
Russia has lost at least 2,000 tanks in Ukraine, according to open source intelligence analysts, but the true number is likely to be far higher and factories have struggled to replace them. “This was half the size of the usual May Day parades, because those tanks are being used in Ukraine or have been destroyed,” said James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Chatham House think tank. “Russians are worried about the Ukrainian counteroffensive. They don’t know when or where it’s going to come and they don’t have the manpower to take or hold territory.
“Once you’ve hollowed out the rural communities, the reserves, the prisons, the immigrants, then you need to go for the metropolitan elite, with all the uproar that entails.”
Moscow has already been on heightened alert after a drone exploded over the Kremlin last week, purportedly targeting Putin. That came after a wave of other drone and sabotage strikes inside Russian territory, damaging infrastructure vital to the war effort and targeting vocal supporters of the war.
“The decisive battle for the fate of our motherland became domestic, popular and sacred,” Putin said, although he made no mention of the attacks, Russian setbacks in Ukraine or the expected counteroffensive.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, issued his own expletive-laden half-hour video address via Telegram while Putin was speaking, saying that Russia did not deserve to celebrate any recent victories, only historic ones. He appeared furious at the military hardware on display in Red Square while his troops continue to fight house-to-house with Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut.
“We have everything there on TV, but the Ukrainian offensive will be on the ground,” he said. “Happy Victory Day to our grandfathers, and how we celebrate it is a big question. You just need to remember about them and not f***ing about on Red Square.”
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