to celebrate the “victory” of the Second World War, Moscow displays tanks captured during the war in Ukraine

For a week, the Russian government has been displaying around forty armored vehicles supplied by the West to Ukraine and captured by the army. The opportunity for a new rewriting of history for the Kremlin.

While Vladimir Putin castigated Thursday, May 9, on Red Square, those who distort “the truth about the Second World War”, Russian power revisits history in an exhibition currently being held at Victory Park in Moscow. For the past week, this place has become the new trendy promenade in the Russian capital. The army displays around forty armored vehicles supplied by the West to the Ukrainians and captured on the front.

Tens of thousands of Russians have already gone there to see the “star” of the exhibition, an American Abrams tank seriously damaged by a missile. In the crowd, Igor, a reserve officer in his fifties, observes with an expert eye. “It’s great, I enjoyed everything I saw, he told franceinfo. These beasts came to us and they died like beasts. I once studied the Abrams tank in the army. It was supposed to be the best tank in the world, but we see that it cannot withstand the fire of Russian weapons. This means that no one can defeat Russian weapons, the Russian soul.”

In front of an almost intact French AMX 10 tank, an officer explains to onlookers that it was abandoned. “The French gave old equipment to the Ukrainians”, he said. In the crowd, many families, children, including Dimitri, with his son and daughter. “The children will talk about it to their teacher, they will discuss it with their classmates,” asserts the father of the family, who assures that his children “don’t know many words or terms, but they already know the word ‘fascist’.”

This exhibition is a replica of the one organized by the USSR after its victory against Nazi Germany. For five years, armored vehicles and artillery seized from the German army had been exhibited in Gorky Park. In a corner of the Victoire Park, we find one of these old German armored vehicles, topped with a banner: “The story repeats itself”.