Addressing massed ranks of service personnel on Red Square on the 77th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, Putin condemned what he called external threats to weaken and divide Russia and cited familiar claims that he had used to justify Russia’s invasion on February 24 - that NATO was making threats right next to its borders.
He directly talked to soldiers fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which Russia has promised to “liberate” from Kyiv’s control.
“You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War Two. So that there is no place in the world for executioners, castigators and Nazis,” he said.
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His speech included a minute of silence. “The death of each one of our soldiers and officers is our shared grief and an irreparable loss for their friends and relatives,” said Putin, promising that the state would look after their children and families.
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He talked to Russia on one of its most significant annual holidays when the nation honors the 27 million Soviet citizens who lost their lives in the struggle to defeat Adolf Hitler - a source of national pride and identity.
However, Putin had no victory to announce in Ukraine, and his 11-minute address on day 75 of the invasion was primarily recognized for what he did not say.
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He did not cite Ukraine by name, gave no examination of progress in the war, and gave no indication of how long it might persist. There was no citation to the bloody battle for Mariupol, where Ukrainian defenders holed up in the ruins of the Azovstal steelworks were still disregarding Russia’s attack.
Putin had repeatedly compared the war - which he calls a battle against dangerous “Nazis"- to the challenge the Soviet Union faced when Hitler attacked in 1941.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russia is staging a “bloody re-enactment of Nazism” in Ukraine in an unprovoked war of aggression.
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Preceded by a stirring fanfare, Putin provided his address after a group of eight high-stepping guards marched across the cobbles of Red Square carrying the Russian tricolor flag and the red Soviet hammer-and-sickle victory banner, followed by stirring martial music.
The fighting forces responded with cheers as Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu crossed the square in a black limousine, saluting units, including missile, national guard, and paratrooper units, and congratulating them on the anniversary.
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