Russia prepares to celebrate the Victory Day over Nazi Germany amid strict security measures, especially next to Red Square, in the face of possible acts of Ukrainian sabotage, while redoubling its drone attacks against Ukraine, where the fighting is not abating.

For the first time in many years, the scene of the traditional military parade to celebrate Victory, which in Russia is celebrated on May 9 and not May 8 due to time differencehas been shut down tight for two weeks, something that did not happen even when the parades were attended by world-class leaders.

The members of the Police and the National Guard were placed on permanent guard and their commanders canceled all staff leave and vacations. The extraordinary security measures were adopted on April 26, long before last Wednesday two drones exploded next to the dome of the Kremlin Senate Palace, an attack of which Russia did not hesitate to accuse Ukraine and whose images shocked the country.

In the previous days, the Russian authorities had reported the sighting and crash of supposedly Ukrainian drones in the surroundings of Moscow. After the drone incident in the Kremlin, Moscow, Saint Petersburg and, later, more than half of the country’s regions banned the flights of these devices.

Among the proposals to redouble the defense of important infrastructures such as the Kremlin, Alexei Zhuravliov, vice president of the Defense Committee of the Russian Duma or Chamber of Deputies, stood out for its curiousity, who suggested creating “interceptor eagle squadrons” to combat drones.

Ukraine’s new gesture to secede from Russia

He May 9, a key date for Russian nationalism, arrives marked by a new gesture of division on the part of Ukraine and with less euphoria on the part of Russia in celebrating its great day. He Victory Day against Nazism takes place this Tuesday with many cities, including Moscow, canceling for security reasons the Immortal Regiment, the march in which the Russians commemorate with photos their relatives who fell in the Great Patriotic War and those who died last year in Ukraine.

In 2022, the first May 9 of Russia at war, the citizen procession and the own Putin marched in Moscow with his father’s photograph through Red Square after presiding over the traditional military parade as commander-in-chief, which has also already been canceled in six Russian regions, the annexed Crimea and 21 cities in the country.

Now, this day comes after the announcement by the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, to distance himself from this May 9. Before, they celebrated this Victory Day together with Russia. Now, they will do it together with Europe on May 8, celebrating Europe Day on that day. “I have decided to establish that Europe Day is celebrated in Ukraine every year on May 9 together with the countries of the European Union,” said Zelensky, who registered this law in the Verkhovna Rada.

Russia refers to the war against Nazism as “great patriotic war” and emphasizes only the role of the USSR in the victory. “We will not allow anyone to appropriate the common victory of the nations of the anti-Hitler coalition“, declared the Ukrainian president, who stressed that “the nations of Europe, America, Asia, Australia, Africa, have their own history in this war.”

Zelensky also bet on a victory for Ukraine over Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which “will be defeated as Nazism was defeated“.

Ukraine’s role in World War II

According to the Institute of National Memory of Ukraine, 8 million people who lived in their territory, which became “one of the main battlefields in this war”, died during World War II. Millions were shot or sent to Nazi concentration camps or deported to Germany to be used as free labor, while hundreds of settlements were razed.

The Mass deportations to the Far East and Central Asia from Russiaincluding that of all Crimean Tatars, as well as the armed repression of the Ukrainian independence resistance, occurred when Soviet troops regained control of Ukrainian territory in 1944.

According to the National Institute of Memory, the commemoration of the victory over Nazism in Russia became a cult aimed at “promote warrise above other peoples, appropriate the status of “main winner” and justify aggressive acts and ideological mobilization”. “Russia exploits the theme of World War II to justify crimes in Ukraine“, Viktoria Yaremenko, deputy director of the institute, told the public broadcaster ‘Suspilne’ on Monday.

Vladimir Putin will be accompanied by a large part of the leaders of the States that were under soviet influencein what could be interpreted as a sign of strength and international support in the framework of the invasion of Ukraine, a country that has the support of a large part of the international community, including the United States and the European Union.