In the walk-up to Victory Day this year, the United Nations says that the Russia-Ukraine war has displaced more than 5 million Ukrainians so far-and projects it will displace more than 8 million before it’s done. The end of the Great Patriotic War in Russia remains one of the largest World War II. It has turned instead into an instrument for providing support to the most militarized, bellicose kind of Russian leader.” Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) was proclaimed on May 8, 1945, but Russia celebrates it the day after, on May 9. “In its official conception, Russia’s commemoration of Victory Day in 1945 is only formally an occasion for collectively mourning for Russia’s war dead. “The current regime, which calls itself the sole heir of this victory, uses this achievement to make itself immune to criticism on other issues while justifying its current militarization efforts and excessive state interference in all aspects of life,” Kolesnikov wrote. USA Soldiers Flag raising victory scene World War symbolic of heroism. Journalist Andrei Kolesnikov wrote in a 2017 article about the modern-day significance of Victory Day that it’s “central” to Putin’s view of Russian history, and “the Great Patriotic War” has become his nickname for World War II. Translation Russian inscriptions: Victory Day. Pundits in Russia have pointed out that Victory Day has also become about more than just celebrating Russia’s military achievements in the past it’s very much about galvanizing support for Russia in the present and showing off the strength of Russia’s military forces. Read more: Chancellor Olaf Scholz Wants to Transform Germany’s Place in the World. “The Stalin regime was almost as criminal as the Hitler regime,” scholar Nikolay Koposov stated in a Wilson Center webcast in 2020, “and most Russians do not realize that the war was not for their freedoms but was largely a battle between the two dictators.” Petersburg, told the New York Times in 2018 that acknowledgement of family sacrifices during the war “is probably the only social glue to form a single society” in Russia.īut scholars say that often lost in the Victory Day celebrations are hard truths about what Russia’s victory in the war really meant. Kurilla, a professor at the European University of St. Tens of millions of Russian citizens have marched in Moscow carrying portraits of relatives who died in World War II. Billboards and buses have featured posters of Stalin for Victory Day. Russia’s first post-Soviet President Boris Yeltsin turned those into an annual tradition under Putin, hundreds of thousands of spectators have gathered to watch military personnel march alongside tanks and missiles. By the time the text was signed late at night, it was already May 9 on Moscow time.Īs TIME has previously reported, in the 1960s Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev made May 9 a national holiday, complete with military parades. While the Allies marked May 7 as “V-E Day”-Victory in Europe Day-to commemorate the Nazis surrendering in Reims, France, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin wanted to wait to celebrate until the Nazis surrendered in Soviet-controlled Berlin the next day. World War II has always been central to the Russian state’s approach to telling the country’s history.
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