Under Vladimir Putin’s rule, May 9, the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, has become increasingly important. Now it serves as the ideological justification for the war in Ukraine.
Soldiers and tanks standing at attention are part of the May 9 Victory Day Parade in Moscow. So that everything is perfectly choreographed, there will be practice in May 2021.
Every five years, Russia celebrates May 9th, the day of the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, with extravagance and pomp. In 2010, on the 65th anniversary, the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel watched the military parade on Red Square from the spectator stand at Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow. Flanking them were Dmitry Medvedev, then President, and Vladimir Putin, then Prime Minister of Russia. At the end of the show, the military band played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” – the anthem of a united Europe.