Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Putin talk leaves Russians in dark
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin used his country’s biggest patriotic holiday to again justify his war in Ukraine but did not declare even a limited victory or signal where the conflict is headed.
The Russian leader oversaw a Victory Day parade on Moscow’s Red Square yesterday, with troops marching in formation and military hardware on display to celebrate the Soviet Union’s role in the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany, as his forces pressed their offensive with few signs of progress.
But 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, even though Moscow’s nucleararmed forces are far superior in number and firepower.
“The danger was rising by the day,” Mr Putin said.
“Russia has given a pre-emptive response to aggression.”
He steered clear of battlefield specifics, failing to mention the potentially pivotal battle for the vital southern port of Mariupol and not even uttering the word “Ukraine”.
On the ground, meanwhile, intense fighting raged in Ukraine’s east, the
Black Sea port of Odesa in the south came under bombardment again, and Russian forces sought to eliminate the Ukrainian defenders making a last stand at a steel plant in Mariupol.
Mr Putin has long bristled at Nato’s creep eastward into former Soviet republics, and argued yesterday that Russia had to invade Ukraine before an “inevitable” clash.
Ukrainian leaders and their western backers have denied that Kyiv or Nato posed a threat.
As he has done all along, Mr Putin falsely portrayed the fighting as a battle against Nazism, thereby linking the war to what many Russians regard as their finest hour: the triumph over Nazi Germany.