Victory Day parade is held every year to celebrate Hitler’s Soviet defeat in World War II, a campaign that Putin says now ends in a battle with the Nazis in Ukraine.
Western governments said last month that the Russian president had pressured generals to win the war there before May 9 so he could use the occasion as a parade of double victory.
When that fails, some military experts have warned that he could make a full-scale declaration of war against Kyiv, which would lead to mass mobilization of Russian citizens. In this case, he did neither.
Addressing troops from all branches of the armed forces, including some who have recently returned from Ukraine, he said Russia had no choice but to invade because the West was “preparing to invade our land, including Crimea.” He said: “This is absolutely unacceptable to us.”
The “heroic” Russian soldiers he sent to Ukraine fought the “Nazi” enemies their ancestors fought at Stalingrad. The only difference was that these days they were controlled by NATO, which was armed with nuclear weapons, and not by Hitler, he said.
Putin said that “Kyiv has announced the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons” – carelessly forgetting that he is the main one threatening nuclear threats.
Silently acknowledging that the scale of Russia’s losses could no longer be convincingly concealed from the public, he signed a decree that would support the families of servicemen killed and wounded in the war. “The death of every soldier and officer is painful for us,” he said. “The state will do everything to take care of these families.
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