Russia’s Victory Day quiet, but Belarus holds full event
Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Victory Day, the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, in a ceremony shorn of its usual military parade and pomp by the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Putin on Saturday laid flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier just outside the Kremlin walls and gave a short address honoring the valor and suffering of the Soviet army during the war. He did not mention the virus — Russia has nearly 200,000 confirmed cases — or how its spread had blocked the observances that were to be a prestige project for him.
Victory Day is Russia’s most important secular holiday, and this year’s observance had been expected to be especially large because it is the 75th anniversary, but the Red Square military parade and a mass procession called The Immortal Regiment were postponed as part of measures to stifle the spread of the virus.
In neighboring Belarus, however, the ceremonies went ahead in full, with tens of thousands of people in the sort of proximity that has been almost unseen in the world for months.
A full military parade of some 3,000 soldiers was held Saturday in Minsk, the capital, which has not imposed restrictions to block the virus’s spread despite sharply rising infection figures. Tens of thousands of spectators, few of them wearing masks, watched the event.
President Alexander Lukashenko, who has dismissed concerns about the virus as a “psychosis,” said at the parade that Belarus’ ordeal in the war “is incomparable with any difficulties of the present day.”
Musk, in Twitter rant, floats moving Tesla HQ
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Saturday that the company would file a lawsuit and seek to move its headquarters outside California after local officials again prohibited the electric car company from producing vehicles during the outbreak.
Mr. Musk made the threats in a series of tweets, claiming that the restrictions imposed by Alameda County, where Tesla’s primary manufacturing facility is located, are “contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!”
In doing so, Mr. Musk also said the company would move its headquarters and future programs to Texas and Nevada. He appeared to leave open the possibility of maintaining some operations in Fremont, Calif., depending “on how Tesla is treated in the future.”
Trump attacks tweak to Calif. House race
President Donald Trump spent a portion of his Saturday focused on a special election in the suburbs of northern Los Angeles County, attacking a decision to add an in-person voting center there in a series of misleading tweets.
Because of the coronavirus, voters were encouraged to mail in ballots. But a limited number of in-person polling places were long planned to be open, and one was added recently in Lancaster.
Mr. Trump, incorrectly asserting that the vote was to be entirely via mail, claimed in a string of tweets that Democrats were “trying to steal another election.”