Russia is defending ‘Motherland’: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin used his country’s biggest patriotic holiday on Monday to justify his war in Ukraine but did not declare even a limited victory or signal where the conflict is headed, as his forces pressed their offensive with few signs of progress. His much-anticipated speech offered no new insights into how he intends to salvage the grinding war, and he instead stuck to allegations that Ukraine posed a threat to Russia, though Moscow’s nuclear-armed forces are far superior in number and firepower. “The danger was rising by the day,” Putin said. “Russia has given a preemptive response to aggression. It was forced, timely and the only correct decision.” “You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War Two. So that there is no place in the world for executioners, castigators and Nazis,” he added.

MOSCOW: 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.

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”.

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.

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.”

Fighting continues

The fighting continued unabated on the ground.

In Severodonetsk, the easternmost city still held by Ukraine, a Ukrainian soldier with the nom de guerre Koval said that Russians had now entered its northern side. “We are defending the southern half of the city,” the soldier told AFP.

In the devastated southern port of Mariupol, depleted Ukrainian forces are defending their final bastion at the Azovstal steelworks.