![]() However, many regions have canceled their May 9 observances because of concerns the events could be targets for Ukrainian attacks. The Soviet Union lost at least 20 million people in the war the suffering and valor that went into the German defeat have been touchstones ever since. ![]() The holiday falling on Tuesday marks the 78th anniversary of Germany’s capitulation in World War II after a relentless Red Army offensive pushed German forces from Stalingrad, deep inside Russia, all the way to Berlin, about 2,200 kilometers (1,300 miles). But the war in Ukraine undermines both this year. “Maybe they are indeed afraid that too many mothers might come in the streets with pictures of their sons asking for accountability,” Locoman said.įor the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, lauds two tenets that are central to its identity: military might and moral rectitude. Locoman noted Russia has not updated its official death count from last year - an estimate of around 5,000 - when Western analysts have put the number killed and wounded at up to 200,000. The official reason given by the organizers of the event, a group called Immortal Regiment of Russia, was that cities bordering Ukraine could not march out in a mass crowd due to security threats, according to Russian state media TASS.Įcaterina Locoman, a senior lecturer of political science at the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, said the limitation of the Immortal Regiment march could have been born out of a desire to avoid demonstrations against the war. ![]() On Victory Day, the tradition is for Russians to march and carry pictures of those who lost their lives in the war in a procession called the Immortal Regiment - but many cities across the nation canceled the activity on Tuesday. The Soviet Union saw more than 22 million civilian and military casualties in the war. ![]() The quick, less grandiose event may also have been an attempt to dodge domestic blowback over the massive human toll of Russia’s war in Ukraine.Ī staple of Victory Day is to remember and honor those killed in World War II, which is called the Great Patriotic War in Russia. Russian RS-24 Yars ballistic missiles drive along the embankment next to the Kremlin wall after Monday’s Victory Day parade in Moscow. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that Putin was trying to showcase his continued influence in Central Asia. No foreign leaders attended Victory Day celebrations in Moscow last year. and Western allies are attempting to isolate Russia, Putin invited leaders from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to stand with him in Moscow. “Their goal - and there is nothing new about it - is to break apart and destroy our country, to make null and void the outcomes of World War II,” Putin said in the speech at the Red Square.Īnd though the U.S. Though his remarks were brief, Putin drove home propaganda messaging around Russia fighting an existential war against an oppressive, Nazi-like Western alliance. “And today I looked at the faces of veterans on the Kremlin podium and realized: they need it.” “There was a lot of controversy as to whether a parade was needed at such a time,” wrote Alexander Kots, a blogger with more than 600,000 subscribers.
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