Cold War Redux

"Victory Day unites all generations. We are going forward relying on our centuries-old traditions and feel confident that together we will ensure a free and secure future of Russia."

"[The West is guilty of] fuelling regional conflicts, inter-ethnic and inter-religious strife and trying to contain sovereign and independent centre of global development."

"Russia will do everything to prevent global confrontation, but will not allow anyone to threaten us."

"Our strategic forces are in combat readiness." 

Russian President Vladimir Putin

President Putin said Russia was going through a "difficult, crucial period"  Sputnik/Ramil Sitdikov/Kremlin via REUTERS

 

Victory Day in Russia represents the most revered symbol of Russia's military prowess, which relates to a key element of the country's national identity. Under Vladimir Putin, Victory Day as a secular holiday of great importance, has become a pillar of his military action in Ukraine. He accuses Ukraine and its government of neo-Nazism, necessitating the Kremlin's intervention to expunge the fascism said to be so prevalent in Ukraine and in the process protecting Russia's security. The justification for Russia's territorial grasping of Ukraine's sovereign territory is right there, in that accusation.

Inaugurating his fifth term in office, Vladimir Putin led festivities across Russia, recalling the nation's wartime sacrifice, battling an enemy that turned against the Soviet Union -- that had in very fact, joined forces with fascist Germany as part of its axis forces. Russia's transition from an  axis collaboration with the Third Reich after Germany's invasion of the USSR, to join the Allied group of nations fighting the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany still left suspicion in the minds of other Allied fighting nations on the USSR's ultimate goals that would potentially threaten the stability of the West. Which led, after WWII to the Cold War.

The ceremonies honouring Victory Day saw as is usual, Russian battalions marching by the stands packed with Russian elite in government and the military. Military hardware was on show, from the oldest of the Soviet-era tanks to the current technologically updated war machineery, rumbling across Red Square on May 9. A cold day, with snow flurries, clouds parted briefly to allow the sight of warplanes in a flyby trailing the white, red and blue of the Russian flag in trailed smoke.

The troops fighting in Ukraine were hailed by Putin as "our heroes" in recognition of their courage, resilience and self-denial, he stated,  pledging that "all of Russia is with you". In brief reference to the high degree of tensions between Washington, an allusion to Moscow's nuclear capabilities was briefly highlighted as Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-capable, were hauled across Red Square. Dignitaries and presidents of several former Soviet satellite nations stood beside Putin, the leaders of Cuba, Guinea-Bissau and Laos among them.

Putin's speech waxed eloquent with accusations of "revanchism ... hypocrisy and lies" by the West as they sought to diminish as inconsequential, the Soviet role in the defea5 of Nazi Germany. He spoke of the WWII's era of nationalist leaders in Ukraine who co-operated with the Nazis, as a reflection of ongoing ties to fascism in Ukraine, making references to Ukrainian nationalist figures like Stepan Bandera, killed by a Soviet spy in 1959, Munich; another justification for Russia's military action in Ukraine.

The only tank on show in the Victory Day parade was a World War Two Soviet T-34   YURI KOCHETKOV/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

"It's the continuous self-identification with the USSR as the victor of Nazism and the lack of any other strong legitimacy that forced the Kremlin to declare 'de-nazification' as the goal of the war,"

"[The Russian leadership has] locked itself up in a world view limited by the Soviet past."

Nikolay Epplee, Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center