Putin rallies Russians behind Ukraine offensive

MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin evoked the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany to rally his country round the Ukraine offensive at a grand military parade in Moscow in front of his key allies on Friday.

The Kremlin is using its annual Victory Day parade — marking 80 years since the end of World War II (WWII) — to whip up patriotism at home and project strength abroad as its troops fight in Ukraine.

More than 20 foreign dignitaries, including China’s President Xi Jinping, were in Red Square for the event, the fourth since Moscow launched a full-scale military assault on its neighbor in 2022.

“The whole country, society and people support the participants of the special military operation,” Putin said in an address to the parade, using Moscow’s preferred language for its Ukraine campaign.

Around 1,500 troops that had fought in Ukraine were among 11,000 marching on Red Square, state media reported.

“We are proud of their bravery and determination, of the fortitude that has always brought us only victory,” Putin said.

Ukraine has called the events in Russia a “parade of cynicism.”

Putin sat next to Xi in the stands as the parade got under way. He was also filmed shaking the hands of WWII veterans.

Since sending troops into Ukraine, Putin has frequently drawn parallels between Russia’s modern-day army and the Soviet soldiers who fought Nazi Germany.

“Russia has been and will remain an indestructible barrier against Nazism, Russophobia and anti-Semitism,” Putin said, echoing language regularly used to justify his three-year offensive on Ukraine.

Ukraine has dismissed Putin’s claims that he launched his offensive to “de-Nazify” the country as “incomprehensible.”

They have also been rejected by the West and independent experts.

Unilateral truce

Russia began its assault on Ukraine in February 2022, hoping to take the country in days, but has since become embroiled in a huge, bloody conflict that has killed tens of thousands.

Security has been tight in Moscow, where authorities have jammed mobile internet connections in the capital, citing the threat of Ukrainian attacks.

Putin has declared a unilateral three-day truce in Ukraine to mark the occasion.

Kyiv, which dismissed it as political theatrics, has accused Russia’s army of violating the order to halt fighting hundreds of times.

Kyiv reported strikes in the southern city of Kherson and the central Dnipropetrovsk region overnight, with two people wounded.

Authorities in western Russia’s Belgorod border region said a Ukrainian drone strike hit the city council building, adding that no one was injured.

Kyiv argues the parade has “nothing to do with the victory over Nazism” and that those marching on Red Square were “quite likely” implicit in crimes against Ukrainians.

The two most important guests this year are China’s Xi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

In a symbolic show of support for Kyiv to coincide with the parade, Ukraine’s Western backers at a meeting in the Ukrainian city of Lviv are expected on Friday to sign off on the creation of a special tribunal to try Russia’s top leadership over its military offensive.

In Washington, United States President Donald Trump called Thursday for a month-long unconditional ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, with any breaches punishable by sanctions.

“Talks with Russia/Ukraine continue. The US calls for, ideally, a 30-day unconditional ceasefire,” Trump said on his Truth Social network shortly after speaking to Zelensky.