Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch, and Amy Mackinnon
On May 9, Russia will mark the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II as it does every year: with military parades across the country, the grandest of which is set to take place in Moscow’s Red Square. Only this year, Ukrainian and Western officials expect Russian President Vladimir Putin to seize the opportunity of a day steeped in patriotic fervor to escalate the war in Ukraine.
Western officials have been warning for several weeks that Moscow is under self-imposed pressure to chalk up some kind of victory to announce on Victory Day, as Russia’s 10-week campaign in Ukraine has floundered and fallen far short of the Kremlin’s initial goals to swiftly capture Kyiv. Putin has hinged much of his power and framed Russia’s identity around the Soviet Union’s experiences in World War II, known in Russia as the “Great Patriotic War.” He has sought to portray the war in Ukraine as a new chapter in the fight against fascism, based on flagrant falsehoods that Ukraine is overrun with Nazis controlled by the West and needs liberation. (From 1939 to 1941, the Soviet Union was in cahoots with Nazi Germany and supplied it with oil, grain, and arms up until the very day Germany invaded.)
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