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Ukraine War And May 9
On Monday Russia will hold its annual May 9th Victory parade, celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany, and all eyes will be on Russian leader Vladimir Putin to give some kind of clue on the future of his brutal and bloody war in Ukraine.
Putin will be hard pressed to find some kind brave and valiant parallel with a war against Nazi’s in 1939-1944, but he will try, because he has to.
The only way Russia has sold this war to Russians back home is to claim it’s a struggle against Nazi’s who threaten their homeland once again. But this time the Nazi’s are claimed to be Soviet Russia’s former American and European allies, and of course Ukrainian leaders he has attacked even though Ukraines President is jewish.
Never mind, because when your set on taking over countries near your border, chasing out 44 million people, and destroying large swaths of civilian infrastructure, killing families who are hiding above ground and under, Putin is willing to say anything to cover his crimes.
This week Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (aka Russia’s Pinocchio) claimed Hitler may also have had Jewish blood, infuriating the jewish community and Jewish leaders. A phone call with Israeli P.M. Naftali Bennett and Putin Thursday was held to patch up the open wound.
"The Prime Minister accepted President Putin's apology for Lavrov's remarks and thanked him for clarifying his attitude towards the Jewish people and the memory of the Holocaust," Bennett's office said in a statement.
Diplomacy aside, the Kremlin is trying to claim some great victory in Ukraine on Victory Day, and it won’t be easy.
Reportedly Russian forces are storming the steelworks in Mariupol, a situation after 10 weeks of war, described by Ukrainian leader Zelenskiy as “a living hell”.
It’s a propaganda win for Russia to take Mariupol, claiming a defeat of Ukrainian nationalists, a land bridge to Crimea, and strategically taking large port and isolation of the Ukrainian economy.
There are rumours that part of the Victory Day parade could be held in Mariupol, and Russians have been cleaning the city of tens of thousands of dead, sweeping up. the rubble from the streets, and making it appear they have be “welcomed in a liberation” of some kind.
I will be watching Putin Monday to understand how tightly the Kremlin scripts his appearances, given he appears to be suffering an illness that makes his hands shake, and even interferes with his ability to walk.
In a recent meeting with Belarus’ Lukashenko, Putin appeared stiff and stumbling, and struggled to control tremors in his hands.
In other meetings Putin is seen clutching the edge of his conference to steady his right hand and arm.
Medical experts have suggested he could have a cancerous brain tumour and possibly Parkinson’s disease.
I will also be listening, for some sign of Putin’s long term goals in Ukraine, as his army is said to be on the verge of collapse and even withdrawing in some eastern areas to regroup. Russian military losses are said to be north of 15 thousand dead and tens of thousands of wounded.
Ukrainian forces are gaining not losing ground in north east Ukraine. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zalyzhnyi stated on May 5 that Ukrainian forces are transitioning to counteroffensive operations around Kharkiv and Izyum, the first direct Ukrainian military statement of a shift to offensive operations.
In the south east, look to Russia holding fake independence referendums, leading to full integration in Russia as in Crimea after 2014.
The parade on Monday will itself be a symbolic display of nuclear forces, to threaten the west and again deter interference on the ground in Ukraine.
As one American military analyst joked this week, it will be interesting if the Russian tanks on Red Square appear with turrets attached, referring to how many of them have been blown off and destroyed in Ukraine.
Regardless of Putin’s claims of Victory, we all know Russia has fought badly and embarrassingly in Ukraine and now appears much weaker to its neighbours who while fearing Russian Imperial ambitions, are fearing less Russia’s badly mauled military.
As a Moscow based TV correspondent I have covered many of these Victory day parades and have witnessed a dark and disappointing evolution in how they were staged.
I think back to the 60th anniversary in 2005 of the defeat of Nazi Germany, where World leaders including President Bush joined Putin on Red Square celebrating an allied defeat of Hitler. Then the Russians acknowledged their losses and also the allied sacrifices in fighting to defeat Nazi Germany.
By 2015, just ten years later, President Obama and most world leaders snubbed Moscow’s 70th anniversary parade, as a year before Putin had annexed Crimea and invaded Ukraines eastern Donbas region. And Russia then didn’t recognize a joint victory in its Great Patriotic War with the west anymore.
Another stark omission I suspect will be made on Monday in Russia will be the fact that while Soviet Russia lost an estimated 27 million soldiers and civilians in WW2, and Russia withstood the highest number of casualties, with 6,750,000 military deaths and 7,200,000 civilian deaths, Ukraine tallied the second-highest casualties, with 1,650,000 military deaths and 5,200,000 civilian deaths.
This makes Putin’s claims of Nazi leadership of Ukraine as a justification for this terrible invasion and war, all the more immoral and preposterous.
So Victory Day this year will be notable in Russia. Not because of a celebration of a defeat over a great enemy, and noble sacrifices by warriors, but it will mark a hollow attempt to justify a new and senseless war in Ukraine, by Putin who started a fight Russia can’t win.