Putin’s Victory Day Brings Evidence of Defeat
One year after launching a criminal, fratricidal, ill-conceived and poorly-run military campaign, he has single-handedly set Russia back in every respect.
This year’s Victory Day is anything but.
Photographer: Anton Novoderezhkin/AFP via Getty Images
Victory Day on May 9, commemorating the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945, is still the biggest official holiday in Putin’s Russia and the cornerstone of its ideology. This year, Moscow will again celebrate it with a full-scale military parade in Red Square and a Putin speech in front of the troops — still on, despite what the Russian authorities called a narrowly thwarted Ukrainian drone attack on Putin’s Kremlin residence last week (Ukraine denies involvement).
Yet Russia has rarely been as far removed from any kind of victory as it is today. Putin’s biggest problem is that hardly anyone, apart from his suppressed, docile population, is scared of him anymore.