| A muted war holiday in Russia |
| Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, yesterday used the annual celebration of Victory Day, a holiday that commemorates the Soviet Union’s triumph in World War II, as a platform to denounce the West and make fictitious claims about Ukraine, equating his war of choice against that country with the Soviet Union’s fight for survival against Nazi Germany. |
| Putin’s list of baseless justifications for his invasion has previously included echoes of World War II. But his rhetoric has shifted from talk of a war of self-defense to drawing direct parallels to the fight against Nazism. |
| Reflecting the failures of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, yesterday’s parade in Red Square was considerably smaller than the vast spectacle of military might seen in past years, lacking the usual flyover by warplanes or the rows of state-of-the-art tanks. Russia has failed to topple the government in Kyiv or seize all of the territory it has claimed, and the death toll is mounting. Now Putin faces the prospect of a counteroffensive by Ukraine. |
| Quotable: “A real war has been unleashed against our motherland again,” Putin said in a 10-minute speech in Moscow’s Red Square, whose themes were quickly repeated by the state news media. “Battles that decide the fate of our motherland have always become all-encompassing, patriotic and sacred.” |
| In other news from the war: |
| A trip to Europe by China’s top diplomat, aimed at persuading European leaders that they can do business with Beijing, has been derailed by discussions about China’s ties to Russia.Arnan Soldin, a video journalist working for the news agency Agence France-Presse, was killed by rocket fire in eastern Ukraine. He is reported to be the 17th journalist killed in Ukraine since 2022. |
