“The state will do everything to take care of these families.” “The death of every soldier and officer is painful for us,” he said. In a tacit acknowledgement that the scale of Russia’s losses can no longer be convincingly hidden from the public, he signed a decree that would give support to the families of servicemen killed and wounded in the war. Putin claimed that “in Kyiv, they announced the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons” – blithely forgetting that he has been the main one delivering nuclear-tipped threats. The only difference was that these days they were controlled by Nato, which was armed with atomic weapons, rather than Hitler, he said. The “heroic” Russian soldiers he had sent to Ukraine were fighting the “Nazi” enemies their forefathers had battled at Stalingrad. ![]() He declared: “That is absolutely unacceptable to us.” In the event, he did neither.Īddressing troops from all branches of the armed forces, including some who had returned recently from Ukraine, he said Russia had no choice but to invade because the West was “preparing for the invasion of our land, including Crimea”. When that failed to materialise, some military experts warned that he might make a full-scale declaration of war against Kyiv, which would entail a mass mobilisation of Russian citizens. Western governments claimed last month that the Russian president was pressuring generals to win the war there before May 9 so he could use the occasion as a double victory parade. The Victory Day parade is held every year to celebrate the Soviet defeat of Hitler in World War II – a campaign Putin claims he is now finishing off by fighting “Nazis” in Ukraine. It added to a sense that Putin’s much-vaunted May 9 Victory Day extravaganza was something of a damp squib. ![]() The cancellation of other flypasts in St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Samara prompted speculation that Russia was concerned about Ukrainian sabotage. The government later cited heavy cloud cover and low-level turbulence, which would make precision formation flying difficult – but the explanation caused bafflement, with conditions in Moscow neither rainy nor particularly windy or overcast. The mystery omission prompted speculation that the Kremlin was worried about sabotage at the parade, where Vladimir Putin resisted the urge to declare all-out war on Ukraine or order mass mobilisation.Īircraft rehearsing for Monday’s event, which celebrates the end of the Second World War, had been seen flying in the Z shape also used to identify Russian armoured vehicles in Ukraine.īut at the last minute, the Kremlin cancelled the planned display in Moscow because of “bad weather”. Russia’s Victory Day parade in Moscow went ahead without a promised display of airpower in a muted display.
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