A local is looking at a shell crater near an apartment building that was destroyed during a Russian shelling in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine. ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO / Reuters
For decades, May 9 was a day of solidarity and a shared triumph for Russia, Ukraine and the other countries that once made up the Soviet Union. But this year, Ukrainians will watch Moscow celebrate Victory Day with fear.
As Russia’s 10-week invasion of Ukraine is largely frustrated by poor planning and fierce resistance, there are fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin will use his annual speech in Moscow’s Red Square to address soldiers and veterans. gathered to mark the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany – to announce some new escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.
The annual Red Square military parade usually includes intercontinental ballistic missiles, a demonstration of nuclear power that will be particularly threatening at a time when tensions between Russia and the West are at their peak since the Cuban Missile Crisis 50 years ago.
Sergei Utkin, head of strategic assessment at the Moscow-based Primakov Institute for World Economy and International Relations, said he expects the Kremlin to use May 9 to link World War II triumph over the Nazis, which costs 24 million Soviet lives, to the current conflict. Moscow says it is fighting “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, although far-right groups have little influence in the country and Zelensky himself is Jewish.
While Mr Utkin predicted that Mr Putin would not make any major statements that would overshadow a day sacred to many Russians, officials in Britain and the United States said they believed Mr Putin could uses Victory Day to officially declare war on Ukraine. So far, the Kremlin has insisted it is conducting only a “special military operation” against its neighbor. Ordering full mobilization could lead hundreds of thousands of Russians to military service.
Russian servicemen drive a tank on a street in Moscow during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade. EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA / Reuters
There are also widespread fears that a wave of missile strikes or even the use of banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on targets around Ukraine will be observed on Monday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed such predictions as “nonsense.”
The general mobilization or use of banned weapons would underscore how badly the Russian military has done so far. A war that many predicted Russia would win in a few days now seems likely to drag on for at least months. Russia has already been forced to abandon its early attempt to seize Kyiv in order to concentrate its forces in eastern and southern Ukraine.
“Ukraine seems ready for everything to come,” said Vladimir Dubovik, a professor of international relations at Odessa’s Mechnikov National University, which has been closed since the invasion began on February 24. “If it doubles, declaring full mobilization and martial law, it will be harder for us, of course. But then most experts believe that they could not bring reinforcements at all or bring them quickly. In any case, the flow of weapons to Ukraine must continue. This seems to be a critical moment. Their use of WMD would be awful, of course, if that happened. ”
In addition to the parade in Moscow, there are indications that the Kremlin may be planning some sort of May 9 celebration in the largely Russian-controlled ruined Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Vladimir Solovyov, a prominent Russian state television presenter, and Sergei Kiriyenko, a senior aide to Mr Putin, have visited Mariupol in recent days, and Ukrainian intelligence said last week that Russian troops were clearing corpses and rubble from the streets, possibly in preparation. on parade on May 9 in the city.
But even in Mariupol, where more than 20,000 people are believed to have been killed since the start of the war, Russia is unable to fully meet its military goals. Some Ukrainian fighters have been hiding in the city’s sprawling Azovstal steel plant for weeks, opposing Russia’s attempts to declare even a limited victory on May 9th.
A demonstrator holds a placard during an anti-war protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine in Tbilisi, Georgia, a day before Russia celebrates Victory Day. Shah Aivazov / Associated Press
“The Russians are desperately trying to score some goals, any goals, to celebrate this day, but they will not succeed,” said Iliya Samoilenko, a lieutenant in the Azov Battalion, who is still defending the plant, at a news conference on Sunday. , broadcast online from somewhere in the tunnels under the Azovstal plant.
Lieutenant Samoilenko was critical of the Ukrainian government and military for no longer trying to save the trapped defenders of the steel plant – which he said included hundreds of wounded fighters – but said his unit would fight. “No one expected us to last that long, but in spite of everything and in spite of everything, we are still holding on, we are still holding on.”
Lieutenant Samoilenko questioned the Ukrainian government’s claim that all civilians had been evacuated from Azovstal, saying that even it was impossible for him to know how many people were still trapped in other parts of the factory.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video saying the world had not kept its “never again” vow made at the end of World War II.
“Darkness returned to Ukraine decades after World War II. “Evil is back,” said Zelensky, standing in front of a ruined apartment building in the town of Borodyanka near Kyiv, where hundreds of people were killed during a month-long Russian occupation earlier in the war. “In different forms, under different slogans, but with the same purpose.”
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