Putin's Victory Day speech passionate but empty
ABC News
Vladimir Putin had no victories in Ukraine to proclaim on Victory Day
Vladimir Putin had no victories in Ukraine to proclaim on Victory Day. Nor did his speech at the Red Square military parade offer any clear pictures of when a victory may come or how it would be achieved.
Instead, the Russian president’s address Monday seemed to suggest that the war that many expected would be brief and decisive could be a long and brutal grind.
Victory Day commemorates another campaign of grisly determination: the Red Army’s offensive against Nazi forces that eventually brought the Soviet troops to Berlin, ending the European theater of World War II. The suffering was immense on the battlefield and among civilians; the Soviet Union lost 27 million people in the war.
The pain of all the deaths combines with the defeat of odious opponents to give Victory Day a deep emotional resonance in Russia. Putin on Monday tried to portray the war in Ukraine as having the same high moral purpose as the fight against Adolf Hitler’s forces.
