Putin taunts West: look at all my guns!
MOSCOW: Vladimir Putin has tried to convince his people that his illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine was “necessary to protect the “Motherland”, as his military flexed its muscles at a huge parade marking the 1945 Soviet victory over the Nazis.
Fierce battles raged in eastern Ukraine while Putin made his Victory Day speech against a backdrop of intercontinental ballistic missiles rumbling through Moscow’s emblematic Red Square.
Ukrainians and Westerners accused Putin of exploiting the World War II anniversary, with protesters in Warsaw tossing blood-red paint on the Russian ambassador, chanting “fascists!” and hoisting a Ukrainian flag, as he visited a cemetery.
But Putin sought to channel Russian pride for what he has described as a “special military operation” to “deNazify” Ukraine, which is led by a Jewish president.
Putin blamed the West and Ukraine for the two-anda-half-month conflict, telling the parade 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 said.
The sabre-rattling display in Red Square also featured some 11,000 troops and more than 130 military vehicles, although a planned military flypast was cancelled.
Western powers were unimpressed by Putin’s words. British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace accused Putin of “mirroring fascism”. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the Russian leader was “in denial”. And US State Department spokesman Ned Price called his speech “patently absurd” and an “insult” to history.
In the critical southern port of Odesa, European Council President Charles Michel paid a surprise visit of support and was forced to take shelter during a strike.
“The Kremlin wants to execute your spirit of freedom and democracy,” he said in a video posted from Odesa. “I am totally convinced they will never succeed.”
The port city was hit by a series of powerful missiles, destroying five buildings, setting ablaze a shopping centre and injuring two people, emergency services said.
Russia has been seeking to seize Ukraine’s east after failing to take the capital Kyiv.
The governor of the eastern Luhansk region, Sergiy Gaiday, said there were “very serious battles” around Bilogorivka and Rubizhne.
Journalists reported seeing 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 village of Bilogorivka.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky invoked the ghosts of World War II to chide Russia for claiming sole credit for winning the war.
“We will not allow anyone to annex this victory. We will not allow it to be appropriated,” he said in a video posted just before Putin spoke.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has signed a LendLease Act into law – modelled on America’s World War II efforts to fight Nazi Germany – which cuts through bureaucratic hurdles in order to speed up crucial weapons shipments to Ukraine.