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Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced the West — including the Ukraine he invaded in 2014 and 2022 — for “distorting history,” in a speech marking the 79th anniversary of the allied victory over Nazi Germany.
In an annual parade that was short of pre-war pomp — only one tank, a World War Two-era T-34 model — led the march, Putin used the event to slam Russia’s enemies and to warn darkly of his country’s powerful nuclear arsenal. Speaking on the same day in Vilnius, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned of the danger posed by Russia.
Putin leaned heavily on the memory of the Soviet conquest of Hitler’s Berlin in 1945 to take aim at the West.
“Today we see how they’re trying to distort the truth about WWII. It interferes with those who are used to building their essentially colonial policy based on hypocrisy and lies,” the freshly (re)inaugurated president told the assembled crowd, according to the Russian press.
The Red Army was part of a much broader allied coalition including the U.S., the U.K., Poland, France, Canada and others.
Soviet Victory Day, commemorated a day later than the day marked by the other allies, also signals the beginning of the USSR’s half-century occupation of most of Central and Eastern Europe, mass deportations to Siberia and forced collectivization of local economies.
Although Russia was only a part of the USSR, today’s Russia has tried to monopolize the Soviet victory as its own, and Putin uses the memory of the war to buttress Russian nationalism.
That extends to tarring opponents of his regime as “Nazis.”
“Revanchism, abuse of history, and an attempt to justify the current Nazi followers is part of an overall policy of the Western elites to stoke new regional conflicts,” Putin said, referring to the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who he regularly accuses of being a neo-Nazi.
Putin warned that his country’s atomic weapons are “always ready,” after Russia announced earlier this week that exercises near Ukraine would revolve around tactical nuclear weapons. In the speech, Putin claimed he’s actually preventing global confrontation but would “not allow anyone to threaten us.”
But in a sign of Russia’s isolation, only nine other leaders were in Red Square alongside Putin to watch the parade.
While countries like France celebrated the end of the war on Wednesday, Thursday also marks Europe Day.
That’s being emphasized by countries like Lithuania, which are wary of May 9 being the cause of pro-Russian celebrations.
Von der Leyen, who is currently bidding for a second term in post ahead of June’s EU election, spoke in the Lithuanian capital on Thursday morning, and she underlined the danger that Putin poses to the rest of the Continent.
“For many years, Lithuania warned Europe about the dangers of Russia,” she said. “After 2014, you told us that Putin would simply not stop. And Europe should have listened. It took us too long to wake up to the threat of Putin’s Russia. But today our Union stands firmly at your side, for freedom and against aggression.”
