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The franceinfo Talk looks at the celebration of “Victory Day” against Nazi Germany in Russia, in the midst of the war against Ukraine. Ludo Pauchant receives Denys Kolesnyk consultant, specialist in Eastern Europe, as well as Jean de Gliniasty, research director at IRIS and former French ambassador to Russia from 2009 to 2013.
On May 9, like every year, a large military parade is held on Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate the victory of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany in 1945. A celebration which allows Vladimir Putin to mobilize the memory of the Second World War to legitimize its war policy carried out in Ukraine.
“Russian strategic nuclear forces on alert”
During his speech on Red Square in Moscow, the head of the Kremlin reaffirmed an ever more serious break with the West by evoking a “special military operation”, recalling the upcoming holding of tactical nuclear exercises, involving troops based near Ukraine.
The Russian president says that Russian strategic nuclear forces are “always” on alert, ready for combat. “We will not allow anyone to threaten us,” declared Vladimir Putin.
By celebrating the historic victory of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, the head of the Kremlin draws on the memory of the Second World War to denounce what he considers to be an orchestrated “distortion of history”. by “Western elites”. By posing as heir to the power of the USSR, President Vladimir Putin, just inaugurated for a fifth term, is using a memorial speech to justify his offensives against Ukraine.