![]() But Russian propaganda is about wishful thinking.Ī deputy to the Russian puppet who falsely proclaimed himself the “mayor” of Mariupol in early April has announced that a traditional-style “Regiment of Immortals” victory parade-in which people carry portraits of relatives who died during the Second World War-will be held in a cleaned-up portion of downtown Mariupol on May 9. The myth about the capture of Mariupol will be of special importance in the propaganda show.Īs long as the Ukrainian military continues its heroic defense of the vast Azovstal Iron and Steel Works between the Kalmius River and the Sea of Azov at Mariupol, it is incorrect to say that the city is under Russian control. The small local success that will be hopped up into a “famous victory” will undoubtedly be the Russian Army’s carving of a land corridor from Donetsk to Crimea, made possible by the captures of Kherson, Melitopol, Berdyansk, and part of Mariupol. His propaganda, for want of anything better to say, will try to portray a small local success as a grand achievement on the order of the Red Army’s capture of Berlin and raising of the hammer-and-sickle Soviet flag over the Reichstag on. Putin will have no choice but to make the best of a bad job. What are the tokens of victory that Vladimir Putin will be able to lay before his people? The portraits of Russian soldiers killed in action, who may now number more than twenty thousand? The guided-missile cruiser Moskva, the once-proud flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet which now lies at the bottom of that same Black Sea? The pending NATO memberships of Finland and Sweden, hastened into the North Atlantic alliance, after decades of hesitation, by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine? A Ukraine that is not demilitarized but flush with arms shipments instead? A Russian economy boycotted by hundreds of foreign companies that once provided valuable goods and services that made the lives of millions of Russians better but which now shun their country? What kind of victory will the Kremlin dictator present to Russian citizens on Victory Day? Ukraine continues to resist, and to exist as a free and independent state. ![]() The Russian effort to change Ukraine’s democratically elected Ukrainian government by force did not succeed. Volodymyr Zelensky is greeted with applause in parliaments all over the world and portrayed as a hero in all the leading media. The Ukrainian president and his family are alive. The emphasis of the Kremlin’s rhetoric and Russian propaganda will shift from the “great past” to the “great present.”īut Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” in Ukraine has failed. This year, that parade’s sad distinction will be that it takes place during a full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. The centerpiece of the celebration is a military parade through Red Square in Moscow. It is not uncommon, for example, to see Russians plastering their cars with stickers reading “We can repeat!” Repeat what, exactly? The horrors of war? The destruction of cities? The mass outbreaks of rape and looting? If heard at all before 24 February 2022, these questions have not been heard since. The spirit of militant Russian patriotism reaches its apogee on this day. ![]() How does a Russian autocrat celebrate Victory Day while losing a war? Expect lies, myths, and propaganda.Įvery year on May 9, Russia celebrates Victory Day to mark the 1945 triumph of the Soviet Union and its allies over Nazism. Putin’s Incredible Shrinking Victory Parade
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