No end in sight for war as Putin hails Victory Day
ZAPORIZHZHIA, UKRAINE » Russian President Vladimir Putin used his country’s biggest patriotic holiday Monday to again justify his war in Ukraine, as his forces pressed their offensive with few signs of progress.
The Russian leader oversaw a Victory Day parade on Moscow’s Red Square, with troops marching in formation and military hardware on display to celebrate the Soviet Union’s role in the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany.
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.
Putin steered clear of battlefield specifics, failing to mention the potentially pivotal battle for the vital southern port of Mariupol and not uttering the word “Ukraine.”
On the ground, meanwhile, intense fighting raged in Ukraine’s east, the vital Black Sea port of Odesa in the south came under bombardment again, and Russian forces sought to finish off the Ukrainian defenders making their last stand at a steel plant
in Mariupol.
Putin has long bristled at NATO’s creep eastward into former Soviet republics, and argued Monday that Russia had to invade Ukraine before an “inevitable” clash.
Ukrainian leaders and their Western backers have denied that Kyiv or NATO posed any threat.
Nazism invoked
As he has done all along, 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.
He also sought to depict the offensive underway for
control of the Donbas region in the east, Moscow’s focus after its abortive attempt to storm the capital, Kyiv, as a fight on Russia’s “historic lands.” He has long sought to deny Ukraine’s 1,000-year history.
Progress in the east, though, has been slow-going.
Critics said the speech skirted some uncomfortable realities that Putin is facing: With the campaign in Ukraine faltering, he has not asked Russians to accept sacrifices to weather the sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
He also left unanswered the question of whether and how Russia will marshal more forces in the face of significant losses.
“Without concrete steps to build a new force, Russia can’t fight a long war, and the clock starts ticking on the failure of their army in Ukraine,” tweeted Phillips P. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Despite Russia’s efforts to crack down on dissent, antiwar sentiment has seeped through. A few scattered protesters were detained around the country on Victory Day, and editors at one pro-Kremlin media outlet revolted by briefly publishing a few dozen stories criticizing Putin and the invasion.
In Warsaw, antiwar protesters splattered Russia’s ambassador to Poland with what appeared to be red paint as he arrived at a cemetery to pay respects to Red Army soldiers who died during World War II.
‘We will win’
As Putin laid a wreath in Moscow, air-raid sirens echoed again in the Ukrainian capital. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in his own Victory Day address that his country would eventually defeat the Russians.
“Very soon there will be two Victory Days in Ukraine,” he said in a video. “We are fighting for freedom, for our children, and therefore we will win.”