Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday sought to cast Moscow’s military action in Ukraine as a forced response to Western policies and a necessary move to ward off a potential aggression.
Speaking at a military parade on Red Square marking the World War II victory over the Nazis, Putin drew parallels between the Red Army’s fighting against the Nazi troops and the Russian forces’ action in Ukraine.
While lambasting the West, Putin gave no indication of a shift in strategies or made any indication that he was going to declare a broad mobilization, as some in Ukraine and the West have feared.
Russian RS-24 Yars ballistic missiles roll during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, Monday, May 9, 2022, marking the 77th anniversary of the end of World War II | AP
Addressing the phalanxes of elite Russian troops filling Red Square, Putin said the campaign in Ukraine was a necessary move to avert what he described as “a threat that was absolutely unacceptable to us (that) has been methodically created next to our borders.”
Putin said troops and volunteers in the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region were "fighting for the motherland, its future" and he accused the West of preparing for an "invasion of our land".
Putin was speaking at the annual parade on Moscow's Red Square, which marks the anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War.
A security service officer aims his sniper rifle securing the area during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow | AP
He called Nato "an obvious threat" to Russia and said the Russian military operation had been necessary and the "right decision".
Putin also said the state would do "everything" to take care of families suffering bereavements caused by the Ukraine war.
"The death of every soldier and officer is painful for us," he said.
He finished his speech to cheers from soldiers in Red Square, cannon fire and the Russian national anthem.
Russian tanks roll during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow | AP
There had been speculation that Putin would announce an escalation of military action. However, there was no mention of a general or partial mobilization of soldiers.
"Putin tried to delegitimize Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government by connecting them to some sort of Nazi past," said DW Correspondent Aaron Tilton. "He was saying this is about Russia and Russian security, and blamed Ukrainians and the West for attacking Russia."
Russian servicewomen march during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow | AP
"It is a reversal of the actual situation on the ground. We know there wasn't any western aggression directed towards the Russian Federation. Russia was the country that invaded first, Russia was the country that started bombing and shooting. But because Vladimir Putin's long-term goal is to get his people ready for a longer conflict, he had to give them something to rally around," said Tilton.
The Kremlin refers to the invasion of Ukraine not as a war, but as a "special military operation."
Russian servicemen march during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow | AP
The Victory Day that Russia marks on May 9 is the country’s most important holiday, celebrated with military parades and fireworks across the county.
The Soviet Union lost a staggering 27 million people in World War II, which it calls the Great Patriotic War. The conflict, which devastated the country and caused enormous suffering, has left a deep scar in the national psyche.
Some in Ukraine and the West expected Putin to use his speech at the parade to switch from describing the Russian action in Ukraine that the Russian officials have called the “special military operation” to calling it a war.
Putin didn’t make any such shift in rhetoric or give any indication that the Kremlin may change its strategy and declare a broad mobilization to beef up the ranks.
The Kremlin has focused on Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland known as the Donbas, where Moscow-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian government forces since 2014. That conflict erupted weeks after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
The Russian military has rearmed and resupplied its forces withdrawn from areas near Kyiv and other regions in Ukraine’s northeast and moved them to Donbas in an apparent attempt to encircle and destroy the most capable and seasoned Ukrainian troops concentrated there.
In other news, ahead of Victory Day, Russia's air force was busy rehearsing over Red Square, including in Z formation - the motif of the military invasion of Ukraine.
However, Russian news agencies that the air display part of the parade was been cancelled. Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, blamed it on the weather conditions.
The parade comes one day after Ukrainian officials said a Russian airstrike killed 60 people sheltering in a school.
Fighting continues on multiple fronts, but Russia is closest to victory in the port city of Mariupol. The last remaining Ukrainian fighters making a last stand in a steel mill have rejected deadlines to lay down their arms.
Full control of Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, and eastern regions run by pro-Russian separatists.
