Putin is mirroring Nazis, says Wallace
Defence Secretary excoriates Russian leader ahead of ‘absurd’ Victory Day parade
VLADIMIR PUTIN is “mirroring” the fascism of Nazi Germany, Ben Wallace will say today, as the Russian leader holds a massive military parade to galvanise his war effort.
In a major speech, the Defence Secretary will accuse Mr Putin of “hijacking history” and insulting the memory of fallen Soviet forces in Russia’s annual Victory Day parade that marks the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
“Through their invasion of Ukraine, Putin, his inner circle and generals are now mirroring the fascism and tyranny of 70 years ago, repeating the errors of last century’s totalitarian regimes,” Mr Wallace is to tell an audience at the National Army Museum in London. He will also accuse senior officers in the Russian army of such incompetence they should be court-martialled.
“Let’s call out the absurdity of Russian generals – resplendent in their manicured parade uniforms and weighed down by their many medals – for being utterly complicit in Putin’s hijacking of their forebears’ proud history of defending against a ruthless invasion; of repelling fascism; of sacrificing themselves for a higher purpose,” Mr Wallace will say.
The response to the military failures on the ground in Ukraine has been a “disgraceful display of self-preservation, doubling-down on failure, anger, dishonesty and scapegoating”.
“All professional soldiers should be appalled at the behaviour of the Russian army. Not only are they engaged in an illegal invasion and war crimes but their top brass have failed their own rank and file to the extent they should be courtmartialled,” Mr Wallace was to say.
The speech will be given as Moscow throws a lavish military parade in a show of strength against Ukraine and Nato, including a display of Mr Putin’s socalled “doomsday” jet – the aircraft designed to protect the president and allow him to rule from the skies in the event of a nuclear attack and from where a nuclear strike order could be issued.
It is understood that fewer vehicles and other military hardware, such as Russian tanks and rocket systems, will feature in this year’s parade as so many have been destroyed in Ukraine.
After the march, about one million Russians are expected to parade through Moscow in the “Immortal Regiment”, holding pictures of family members who have died in conflict.
“Shame on those who seek to use the suffering of ordinary Russians as a launchpad for their own imperial ambitions,” Mr Wallace will say. “They are the ones who truly insult the memory of the Immortal Regiment.”
Western officials say that Mr Putin could use his speech on Victory Day to expand the offensive in Ukraine and refer to it for the first time as a “war” instead of the widely ridiculed “special military operation”. He may also announce “referendums” or the annexation of the eastern Donbas region, where Ukrainians have been fighting pro-russian separatists since 2014.
Russia’s invasion force have sustained heavy losses, with about 22,000 soldiers being killed in the campaign so far, according to Ukrainian estimates.
It has lost about a third of the equipment it had when the invasion started on Feb 24, equating to about 16 per cent of Russia’s entire land forces.
Moscow is desperate for additional manpower, raising the prospect that Mr Putin may announce a mass mobilisation of conscripts today.
Yesterday, Mr Putin sought to compare the illegal invasion of Ukraine to Russia’s triumph in the Second World War, as he referred to Ukrainians as “Nazi filth”.
“Today, our soldiers, as their ances- tors, are fighting side by side to liberate their native land from the Nazi filth with the confidence that, as in 1945, victory will be ours,” he said.
It came as the G7 agreed on fresh sanctions for Russian financial firms in addition to banning or phasing out Russian oil imports to cripple the country’s economy.
The UK announced new sanctions on Russia and Belarus to target £1.7 billion of trade by raising tariffs on products including platinum and palladium.
A white House official said last night
“If thousands of body bags are coming home, if debit cards aren’t working, if shelves aren’t stocked the way they used to ... if Russia is eventually in default and the country is bankrupt, the question we are putting to him is, is that the endgame Putin is looking for?”
After speaking with G7 leaders, Boris Johnson warned “the world must go further and faster to support Ukraine”, adding that Kyiv’s forces needed fresh kit that would let them “to not just hold ground in Ukraine, but recapture it.”
Several Western leaders travelled to the Ukraine over the weekend, including Justin Trudeau from Canada and Jill Biden, the US First Lady. U2’s Bono and the Edge also performed a gig in Kyiv.
Ms Biden met her Ukrainian counterpart Olena Zelenska, at a school sheltering civilians, including children displaced by the conflict, near Ukraine’s border with Slovakia.
“I wanted to come on Mother’s Day,” the first lady said.
Meanwhile, Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, said that a Russian attack on a school in eastern Ukraine, which is feared to have killed 60 people, amounted to a “war crime.”
Rescuers were yesterday desperately searching through the rubble of the school in the village of Bilohorivka, where 90 people had been sheltering after the destruction of their homes.
Around 30 were thought to have left before the missile hit.
Germany faced more criticism from Ukraine yesterday, after Berliners were banned from displaying Ukrainian flags near Second World War memorials.