2023-05-08 07:58:02
MOSCOW (AP) — Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, celebrates two basic pillars of the country’s identity: military strength and moral rectitude. But this year, the war in Ukraine casts a shadow over both of them.
Tuesday’s holiday marks the 78th anniversary of the German surrender in World War II following an unstoppable offensive by the Red Army drove German forces from Stalingrad, in the heart of Russia, to Berlin, some 2,200 kilometers (1,300 miles). .
The Soviet Union lost at least 20 million people in the war. Since then, the suffering and courage that German defeat cost have been cornerstones of Russian identity.
However, many regions canceled their May 9 events over concerns they might be targeted by Ukrainian attacks. The famous military parade in Moscow’s Red Square was held following Russian claims of an attempted Ukrainian drone attack on the Kremlin, whose towers stand next to the parade site.
Despite the fearsome weaponry that will roam the square, Russia’s inability to make headway in Ukraine tarnishes its army’s image of invincibility.
The Russian campaign seized wide swaths of the neighboring country in the first weeks of the invasion, but has since given up its attempt to reach Kiev, has had to retreat into northern and southern Ukraine and has failed to take Bakhmut, a small town in dubious value, despite months of extraordinarily hard fighting.
President Vladimir Putin is expected to praise the Red Army’s determination to defeat Nazism in his parade speech and reiterate his claim that Russia has the moral superiority in fighting an alleged Nazi regime in Ukraine, a country with a Jewish president.
But the missiles raining down on civilian targets in Ukraine have drawn widespread international condemnation from Russia, and Western countries that joined forces with Moscow to defeat Nazi Germany have sent billions of dollars worth of weapons into Ukraine.
Analysts are divided on whether the May 3 drone incident in the Kremlin was a genuine attack or one false flag to justify an increase in the ferocity of missile attacks once morest Ukraine. Either explanation risks increasing the feeling of insecurity for Russians, already uneasy regarding other attacks, probably committed by Ukraine or by opponents in Russia and which have increased dramatically in recent weeks.
Bomb blasts derailed two freight trains this week in the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine. In a striking reaction, authorities in the region did not blame Ukraine, which might be an attempt to downplay the Ukrainian ability to carry out sabotage.
But authorities in Bryansk claimed in March that two people had been shot dead when suspected Ukrainian saboteurs had entered the region. The area has also suffered from sporadic incidents of artillery crossfire. Four people died last month in one of those episodes.
Elsewhere in Russia, three prominent supporters of the war in Ukraine were killed or wounded on their soil. Last week, nationalist novelist Zakhar Prilepin was seriously injured and his driver was killed in a car bomb explosion in the Nizhny Novgorod region, an incident authorities blamed on Ukraine and the United States.
Darya Dugina, a commentator for a nationalist TV channel, was killed last year in another car bombing outside Moscow, while authorities blamed Ukrainian intelligence for the April killing of prominent pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky. in a Saint Petersburg coffee shop when a bomb concealed in a figurine given to him exploded.
As part of the increased security measures, the authorities also canceled one of the most notable acts of Victory Day, the processions of the “Immortal Regiment” in which masses of citizens take to the streets with portraits of relatives who died or served in the World War II.
The processions carry a genuine emotional charge, in contrast to the dutiful, blank-faced soldiers who march through Red Square during strict military parades, which hardly change from year to year.
Although the processions are moving and impressive in size, authorities “thought the risks were becoming prohibitive,” said Russian analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, now a fellow at the Free University in Riga, Latvia. “If some kinds of drones fly there, cross the impenetrable border…then why mightn’t they drop something on that column?”
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