Russian President Vladimir Putin used a massive annual Victory Parade Monday to justify his brutal war on Ukraine — telling 11,000 gathered troops that they must battle on for Russia’s survival and to stop the “horror of a global war.”
The warmongering leader used Monday’s military parade marking the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II to once again suggest that his invasion of Ukraine was to stop a new threat from Nazis.
“You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of the Second World War,” he told the parade, praising his troops, some of whom had returned from the frontlines.
Puffy-faced Putin also used the annual parade as a show of Russia’s depleted firepower, parading tanks and even intercontinental ballistic missiles able to carry nukes — but without a planned flypast by military aircraft, with bad weather blamed for it being scrapped.
He again claimed Russia’s “special military operation” was a purely defensive and unavoidable measure against fictitious plans for a NATO-backed invasion of lands he said were historically Russia’s, including Crimea.
“An absolutely unacceptable threat to us was being created, directly on our borders,” Putin said, pointing to NATO weapons deliveries to Ukraine and the deployment of foreign advisors.
“The danger was rising by the day,” he said as he surveyed the troops.
“Russia has given a pre-emptive response to aggression. It was a forced, timely and the only correct decision.”
Again suggesting that his invasion was a continuation of World War II, he told the gathered troops that “today you are defending what your grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for.”
Putin did not mention Ukraine by name in his speech and offered no indication of how long the war might continue.
However, he told those gathered that they must fight on “to do everything so that the horror of a global war does not happen again.”
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russian Ground Forces Commander-in-chief Oleg Salyukov had opened the parade, driving across Red Square standing in open-topped cars as soldiers in formation shouted “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!,” according to Agence France-Presse.
Participants were also encouraged to bring photos of those who died fighting in Ukraine.
Putin said some of the troops taking part in Monday’s parade had come directly from the front in Ukraine, acknowledging the “irreparable loss” for the families of dead soldiers, marking it with a minute’s silence.
As Putin laid a wreath in Moscow, air raid sirens echoed again in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 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 released to mark the holiday.
“We have never fought against anyone. We always fight for ourselves. … We are fighting for freedom for our children, and therefore we will win.”
An adviser to Zelensky also pushed back against the idea that Ukraine and its Western allies posed any threat to Russia.
Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter that “NATO countries were not going to attack Russia. Ukraine did not plan to attack Crimea,” which Russia seized in 2014.
The parade came a day after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new weapons and equipment for Ukraine during an unannounced visit to the war-torn nation’s capital, Kyiv.
“Today, I’m announcing more military assistance, drone cameras, satellite imagery, small arms, ammunition and other support, including funding for demining operations,” Trudeau said.
“And we’re bringing forward new sanctions on 40 Russian individuals and five entities, oligarchs and close associates of the regime in the defense sector, all of them complicit in Putin’s war.”
With Post wires
