![]() Illustration: might justify a mobilization by doubling down on his propaganda that Russia is somehow a victim of NATO aggression in this war and needs to take more dramatic steps to defend itself. A mobilization also carries risks, starting with the implicit admission that Russia is not, in fact, already winning, as well as bringing the war closer to home for the majority of Russians (most of the conscripts fighting in Ukraine come from poor, remote regions of Russia, so your average middle-class Muscovite doesn’t necessarily know anyone on the front lines).Ī map showing the state of the war as of May 8. Such a move would bring a lot more Russian manpower into the field, but it would take time for new recruits to arrive, they would be poorly trained, and their involvement would not necessarily change the trajectory of the war. There is a significant concern that Putin will leverage the militaristic sentiment of Victory Day to escalate the conflict, perhaps with a formal declaration of war and a national mobilization. Most Russia experts and observers agree that something is going to happen on Monday, but nobody is sure just what that will be. Victory Day celebrations typically include military parades and a presidential address, and Putin will certainly use that occasion to advance his narrative of what Moscow still refuses to call a war in Ukraine - and potentially, launch the next phase of the war itself. But the invaders continue to face stiff resistance from a resilient, determined Ukrainian army, bolstered by a continuous influx of weapons and intelligence from the European Union and NATO countries.Īll eyes are now on the symbolic date of May 9, Victory Day in Russia, when the country commemorates its monumental defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. intelligence believes Putin will attempt to annex the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson. Having failed to secure the initial objective of capturing Kyiv, deposing Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and installing a pliant puppet regime, Russian forces have regrouped and focused their forces in the south and east, where U.S. It has been ten weeks since Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, and things still aren’t going according to plan. "We let the Warsaw Pact end.Photo: Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool/via REUTERS "The people of Europe are in eternal debt to the Soviet Union," Vasily Golubev, 85, made a Hero of the Soviet Union for helping Leningrad to resist the Nazi siege, said at a Communist-sponsored rally in Moscow on the day of the 1997 parade. NATO has said there is no plan to admit Ukraine, but that it is for Kyiv to decide whether to apply. That expansion still rankles with Putin, who cites what he says is NATO's intention to admit Ukraine as a direct threat to Russia and one of the reasons for Russia's invasion of its neighbour on Feb. To rub salt in the wound, the Western NATO alliance was expanding into the countries of eastern Europe that had been part of the Soviet Communist military alliance, the Warsaw Pact. ![]() ![]() They were rich in nostalgic splendour, at a time when Russia's military, ravaged by post-Soviet economic upheaval, had become a shadow of its former self. Russia's first elected president, Boris Yeltsin, made Victory Day parades an annual event from 1995 onwards.
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