Putin says Russia defending ‘Motherland’
On the ground, the key battles are being fought in Ukraine’s east, which Russia is seeking to secure
Kyiv, Ukraine - President Vladimir Putin insisted Russia’s war in Ukraine was necessary to defend the ‘Motherland’ as Moscow flexed its military muscle at a parade marking the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany.
However, Putin’s speech in Red Square made no major announcements on Russia’s next steps in the invasion, despite reports that he could unveil an escalation or a general mobilisation.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, whose forces are locked in battle with Russian troops in the east, used the occasion to say he would not allow Moscow to appropriate the Soviet Union’s triumph in World War II.
Russia’s ambassador to Poland was meanwhile splattered with a red substance in Warsaw when he tried to lay a wreath to mark Victory Day, in a sign of the international opposition to a war that is now in its third month.
The conflict is mired in the history between ex-Soviet neighbours Ukraine and Russia, with Putin saying the so-called ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine is in part to ‘de-Nazify’ the country. Putin blamed the West and Ukraine for today’s conflict, telling thousands of troops in Red Square that Russia faced an ‘absolutely unacceptable threat’ and warning against the ‘horror of a global war’.
“You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no-one forgets the lessons of the Second World War,” he told Russian forces, shortly after intercontinental ballistic missiles rumbled through the square.
The celebration in Red Square also featured some 11,000 troops and more than 130 military vehicles, although a planned military flypast was cancelled.
‘We will win’
On the ground, the key battles are being fought in Ukraine’s east, which Russia is seeking to secure having tried and failed to take the capital Kyiv and the north.
An AFP team saw columns of trucks filled with soldiers and heavy equipment move down the main road leading away from the city of Severodonetsk, suggesting Ukraine was giving up the defence of its last stronghold in the eastern Lugansk region.
Russian forces were heavily shelling the roads, while the Ukrainians were firing back to help cover the apparent pullout.
Officials said 60 civilians were killed in a Russian air strike on a school in the eastern village of Bilogorivka on Sunday - one of the highest single death tolls since the February 24 invasion.
Lugansk region governor Sergiy Gaiday said on Monday there were ‘very serious battles’ around Bilogorivka and Rubizhne, as Russia tries to take the Russian-speaking Donbas.
Donbas encompasses Lugansk and the neighbouring region of Donetsk.
Zelensky, who spoke in a video address about an hour before Putin, had invoked the ghosts of World War II to chide Russia. “We will not allow anyone to annex this victory. We will not allow it to be appropriated,” he said.
Hailing what he said were Ukrainian victories against Nazi German forces during World War II, he said “We won then. We will win now.”
Yet in Kyiv the commemoration day was largely shunned as life slowly returned to normal, weeks after fierce fighting raged in its suburbs.
The capital’s Maidan square was largely empty. Small patrols of police and Ukrainian armed forces kept watch with air sirens temporarily disrupting the quiet morning, as people waited for any sign from Putin of an upcoming escalation.
Putin blamed the West and Ukraine for today’s conflict, telling thousands of troops in Red Square that Russia faced an ‘absolutely unacceptable threat’ and warning against the ‘horror of a global war’