The Problem with the May 9th victory parade in Moscow this year: Celebrate the ruination of Nazi Germany, yes, not the destruction of Ukraine people
In 1945, Stalin ushered a celebration of the destruction of the Nazi war machine, in Europe, at the close of hostilities , May 9th, which has from now on been known as Victory Day, May 9th, each year. Failed KGB officer Vladimir Putin is now using this date with its known symbolism to mark the destruction of Ukraine, if he can get it, and does not care as to if his is war has a shred of legitimacy. Right now, the symbolism of this date is being bastardized in a rush to celebrate the rape of Ukrainian women, the bombing of civilians in terror raids via dumb bombs (non smart bomb munitions) and in the slaughter by shooting and house to house terrorization of Ukraine civilians as noted in the hundreds of bodies unearthed and found in Butcha Ukraine.
We should celebrate that Slavic Russia ended the worst tyranny of the 20th century, that of Hitler's Europe. We should give no cover to having a democratically elected government in Kiev destroyed, in order to give cover to Putin's ego.
There exists a self imposed deadline as to the presumed "liberation" of Dombass, near Rostov, and Putin is evening now threatening use of tactical nuclear weapons, with NATO not taking into account a thresh hold of Putin's own making which will likely lead to another 10,000 or more Russian deaths. In doing so, Putin will have disabled up to 30% of his military combat power. And in the certainty of more Russian deaths, and fierce Ukraine resistance, tactical nuclear weapon use is leading to the certainty of, if no change occurs of a Russian-NATO war.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/war-ukraine-color-victory-day-russia-year-rcna23650
quote
How the war with Ukraine could color Victory Day in Russia this year
The Russian military is facing pressure to deliver results in time for Putin’s Victory Day speech, given the "serious implications surrounding the key word ‘victory,’” one expert said.??
By?Henry Austin
Russia’s annual Victory Day, celebrated on May 9, arrives this year with the shadow of?war in Ukraine?looming over it.?
The holiday commemorates Russia’s World War II triumph with a patriotic display of raw military power: Troops parade through Moscow’s Red Square alongside military hardware including intercontinental ballistic missile launchers.?President Vladimir Putin?has stood at the center of celebrations since 1999, either as president or prime minister, and has been joined by Soviet war veterans.???
But as this year’s parade approaches, the military pomp and pageantry will contrast starkly with the?hard-fought battles?and?setbacks the Russian military?is reportedly experiencing?in Ukraine?— leaving some experts wondering how Putin will be able to present?Russia’s stalled invasion?as a success on Victory Day.?
Russian RS-24 Yars ballistic missiles roll in Red Square on Victory Day in Moscow in 2020. The parade was postponed until June 24 because of the pandemic.Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP file
Although Nazi Germany ended all its military operations at 23:01 Central European Time (5:01 p.m. ET) on May 8, 1945, Russia celebrated victory on May 9 because the change in time zone meant it came early that morning for them. Other former Soviet nations and some Eastern European nations do likewise.?
For the former Soviet Union, the victory parade that followed was “very important because it gave it the status of world power, so they were celebrating that glory,” said Thornike Gordadze, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank based in London.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent economic hardship in Russia, Putin took office and tried to make the defeat of Nazism the country’s “founding myth to cement the population together and create a Russian identity,” Gordadze said.
Writing in 2015 about?his personal experiences of the war, Putin said his infant brother Viktor was killed and his parents were seriously injured during the siege of Leningrad, which lasted from 1941 to 1944 in the city now known as St. Petersburg.???
President Vladimir Putin attends a flower-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9, 2021.Mikhail Metzel / Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
Putin now uses his annual speech at the parade to “talk about contemporary security issues,” said Ben Soodavar, a political scientist in the war studies department at King’s College London. “It speaks to Russia’s purpose in world politics.”?
For Putin, he said, it was a way of communicating to the Russian people that “he is the person to lead this country through adversity, as was the case in 1945 when Russia overcame Nazism.”
On Victory Day itself, Putin “can’t line up his soldiers and say they’re winning,” Soodavar said. “They have lost thousands.”
But he added that it would be “very easy” for Putin to lie in his speech because?the chances of dissent are small.?
Members of Russia’s armed forces “may disagree with their leaders but they don’t do it publicly," Soodavar he said. “It’s not just fear of retribution, it’s also a fear of being accused of disloyalty. It’s to do with keeping Russia’s pride intact.”???
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The Russian military is facing pressure to deliver results in time for Putin’s Victory Day speech “because there are serious implications surrounding the key word ‘victory,’” Soodavar said.??????
The?tactical retreat by Russian forces?from the areas surrounding Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv in early April make it “look like they’re defeated, like they couldn’t take over the key strategic objective that they were looking for,” he said.?
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As a result Putin “will need to sell this shambolic military campaign in some way,” Soodavar said, adding that the most immediate way to do this would be to take firm control of?Ukraine’s Donbas region?and other parts of the country’s east.????
Sukhoi Su-25 assault aircrafts release smoke in the colors of the Russian flag while flying over central Moscow during the Victory Day military parade on May 9, 2021Alexander Nemenov / AFP via Getty Images file
“What that will mean is more bombing, a much more prolific bombing campaign,” Soodavar said, adding that?the besieged southern city of Mariupol?and?Kharkiv in Ukraine’s northeast?would likely be subjected to sustained attacks again.
However, he cautioned that Ukraine’s “best fighters are stationed there,” and have been fighting Moscow-backed separatist forces since 2014 when Russia threw its weight behind an insurgency in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions after annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.???
“They have been fighting on the front line for the last eight years. They are battle hardened, they know who their adversary is, they’re entrenched and they’re only emboldened by the Russian retreat from Kyiv,” he added.??
This, he said, raised questions about whether Putin would be able to truly project the powerful image he has presented on Victory Day.????
In some former Soviet republics where Victory Day is also held on May 9, “they will do everything to celebrate but keep it away from Russian success,” Gordadze said. That’s also true of countries with large Russian-speaking populations like Estonia, Latvia and Moldova, he added.
A woman holds a portrait of a relative who fought in World War II on Victory Day on May 9, 2021, in Kyiv, Ukraine.Celestino Arce / NurPhoto via Getty Images file
So “it is unlikely we will see Russian flags,” but people will mark the occasion and commemorate the dead, he said.?
It will also be a big day in Ukraine and for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he said.
“Some Ukrainians believed when Zelenskky was elected that he was a pro-Russian candidate," Gordadze said. "Now they don’t think so, because he’s the guy who represents the whole of Ukrainian society, including Russian speakers."
end of quote
FTR
In 1945, Stalin ushered a celebration of the destruction of the Nazi war machine, in Europe, at the close of hostilities , May 9th, which has from now on been known as Victory Day, May 9th, each year. Failed KGB officer Vladimir Putin is now using this date with its known symbolism to mark the destruction of Ukraine, if he can get it, and does not care as to if his is war has a shred of legitimacy. Right now, the symbolism of this date is being bastardized in a rush to celebrate the rape of Ukrainian women, the bombing of civilians in terror raids via dumb bombs (non smart bomb munitions) and in the slaughter by shooting and house to house terrorization of Ukraine civilians as noted in the hundreds of bodies unearthed and found in Butcha Ukraine.
We should celebrate that Slavic Russia ended the worst tyranny of the 20th century, that of Hitler's Europe. We should give no cover to having a democratically elected government in Kiev destroyed, in order to give cover to Putin's ego.
There exists a self imposed deadline as to the presumed "liberation" of Dombass, near Rostov, and Putin is evening now threatening use of tactical nuclear weapons, with NATO not taking into account a thresh hold of Putin's own making which will likely lead to another 10,000 or more Russian deaths. In doing so, Putin will have disabled up to 30% of his military combat power. And in the certainty of more Russian deaths, and fierce Ukraine resistance, tactical nuclear weapon use is leading to the certainty of, if no change occurs of a Russian-NATO war.
Putin is, by his own volition making a mockery of the 1945 achievement. No howling about Nazis in Kiev will bring to the 2022 celebrations the gravitas of defeating the worst tyranny of the 20th century. Instead what Putin is doing is celebrating the murder of innocents due to wishing to impose his Russian Mafia Kapos on a nation which has emphatically on the battlefield made its wishes clear. That of being an independent Slavic nation not beholden to the Russian Mafia
Andrew Beckwith, PhD