When Russia celebrated the 60th anniversary of the handover of the Nazi Germany with a parade of patriotism and Pageantry in 2005, US President George W. Bush sat along with the leaders of France and Germany alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It was the first time that a US president was at the Moscow event to honor the 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians who were killed in the Second World War along the brutal Eastern Front.
At that time it was framed as proof of Russia’s international strain and its place among the world’s great powers.
This year, most leaders from western nations are actively boycotting the event that they see as a propaganda spectacle, but some others will be present, including the President of China, Brazil and Venezuela. It is unclear whether US officials will take part.
“The Countries that send leaders are, on the whole, not those who were actually part of the European Theater of the Second World War, “said Sam Greene, professor of Russian politics at King’s College London and director of democratic resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
“(Putin) draws a lot to his geopolitical project of the moment.”
The Kremlin, who continues to drive his vision for a multipolar world in a challenge in the West, has so far refused to agree with the proposed 30 -day ceasefire in Ukraine, and instead uses the Victory Day to design his current war as a right -wing battle that Russia has no choice than to live.
Fulfill the victory day
On Thursday in a meeting With the Chinese President Xi Jinping, Putin said that both countries “honor the memory of the war years and today stand against the resurrection of neo -Nazism and militarism”.
It is a coexistence that was deliberately manufactured in the media and through the patriotic displays installed across the country. In dozens of Russian cities, advertising boards were built, which show what was described as the great patriotic war after the end of the Second World War as “heart -warming” reunification.
In recent years, other advertising boards have lined the city’s streets in which men are asked to report to what Russia calls its “special military company” in Ukraine. At the beginning of this week, one of the channels created a report in which a soldier fights in Ukraine interviewed a veteran who fought for the Soviet Union.
The narrator notices that “only for a moment” separates the two men and the young Russian soldier will spend on the front on May 9 “, where he will continue to defeat the enemy and bring the victory closer.”
Greene says that it is a deliberate effort to shape what happens in Ukraine as a fair struggle to suppress public frustration about how long the war takes place – or even the fact that Russian cities are now often attacked by Ukrainian drones.
Little public criticism
In view of the strong approach to opposition, there is very little protest or contradiction when it comes to the Russia’s war against Ukraine. People speak outside the country freely, including those who once fought for the Red Army and served the Soviet Union.
When it comes to opinions in Russia, CBC News searched for Russian social media platforms, where the public conversation about the anniversary was mainly focused on a feeling of pride and trust in the later victory in the current war. CBC has not been able to report from Russia since the government closed the station’s office in spring 2022.
In a public forum in which people talked about the plan of Russia, marking the day of the victory with a three -day ceasefire, a step that Kyiv seen as a manipulative stunt, said a mistrust that the Ukraine would agree to him, while others said that Russia wanted to fight hard.
“I don’t understand Putin’s logic or maybe he calculated our strength incorrectly,” said a commentator.
“If he has already started, it has to be ready.”
In a group other than a woman suggested that the world leaders of the world in Moscow arrived for the parade, which resembled a “festival in the time of a plague”, other commentators stacked them, which they questioned and questioned their loyalty.
According to Russian law, everyone can be punished for comments that are discredited, which is why criticism is rare and patriotism is abundant.
Greene says, historically, the conversation about the Victory Day focused on loss and victim, and a much used Russian sentence was: “There is no war.”
Today, he says, it is not unusual to hear another sentence or to see how you offered cars on car stickers: “We can do it again.”
This could mean that we can go all the way back to Berlin, but some make a broader interpretation and see them as a warning for all of Europe and the USA
“(Victory Day) turned from a conversation to memory of … into a more aggressive militaristic attitude.”
A hero from Leningrad, now in Kyiv
It is a transformation that is particularly difficult for the few survivors to be fought for the Red Army or voluntarily reported for the Soviet war efforts and are now in cities in the remaining days that are attacked again.
Hidden in her apartment in Kyiv are the medals and awards that the 98-year-old Ludmyla Varska from the Soviet Union for their service during the Brutal siege of LeningradThe Russian city, which is now known as St. Petersburg.
During a two-year blockade of Axis forces, several hundred thousand civilians were killed, about a third of the city population, which led to widespread hunger.
At that time Varska was a teenager and used sand buckets to extinguish fire bombs that used for buildings and use fire.
When the bombs met, she and her mother and her brother ran the attics and roofs on their streets.
Now, with bad hearing, she rarely wakes up when the air raid sirens whine in Kyiv at night. But when she hears her or the air defense explosions, she is shaken and scared.
“It’s just terrible,” she told a freelance crew who worked for CBC News on Thursday.
“I don’t even understand … many Ukrainians speak Russian and there are many Ukrainians in Russia. “
“Everyone loses”
Varska says that most of her family was killed in the Second World War, and she moved to Kyiv with her husband in the 1960s. Despite the awards, she never took part in a victory parade in Russia, but understands why there are commemorative celebrations for the history of honor.
“Let her celebrate … We should celebrate because we won,” she said
Now she says it feels like everyone is losing.
“Why does that happen … it’s very bad.”
In a village outside of Kyiv, 99-year-old Kuzma Samchenko believes that the world is located shortly before the next big war.
He was appointed to fight with the Soviet armed forces when German troops swept into Ukraine in 1941.
“I didn’t try to shoot during the war because the soldiers on the other hand were sent to war,” he said to CBC News during a telephone interview.
His crappy voice was excited when he said he accused the soldiers who are instructed to march forward, but the politicians from both countries.
“Innocent people die in this war.”
