Last year, Darya Dugina, a commentator with a nationalist TV channel, died in a car bombing outside Moscow, and authorities alleged Ukrainian intelligence was behind the April death in St. A car-bombing last week in the Nizhny Novgorod region that officials blamed on Ukraine and the United States severely injured nationalist novelist Zakhar Prilepin and killed his driver. Three prominent supporters of the war in Ukraine were also killed or injured on their home turf elsewhere in Russia. The region has also come under sporadic cross-border shelling, including last month, when four people were killed. Notably, the region’s authorities did not blame Ukraine, which could be an attempt to whitewash the Ukrainian capability to carry out sabotage.īut Bryansk authorities claimed in March that two people were shot and killed when alleged Ukrainian saboteurs penetrated the region. Two freight trains derailed this week in bomb explosions in the Bryansk region that borders Ukraine. Either explanation risks undermining the sense of security among Russians already rattled by attacks, likely committed by Ukraine or by domestic opponents, that have risen sharply in recent weeks. President Vladimir Putin, in his speech during the parade, is sure to praise the Red Army’s determination to wipe out Nazism and to repeat his assertion that Russia is taking the moral high ground by fighting an alleged Nazi regime in Ukraine, a country with a Jewish president.īut the missiles that rain down on Ukrainian civilian targets have drawn worldwide condemnation of Russia, while the Western countries that made common cause with Moscow to defeat Nazi Germany send billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Ukraine.Īnalysts are divided on whether the May 3 drone incident at the Kremlin was a genuine attack or a “false flag” concocted to justify increasing the ferocity of Russia’s missile barrages in Ukraine. In some parts of the city’s extensive network of rivers and canals, the use of jet skis has also been forbidden.įor all the fearsome armaments that will growl through Moscow’s most famous square, Russia’s failure to make gains in Ukraine spoils the image of its army’s indomitability.Īfter seizing sizable parts of the neighboring country in the opening weeks of the invasion, the Russians abandoned an attempt to enter Kyiv, retreated in parts of northern and southern Ukraine, and failed to take Bakhmut, a small city of questionable value, despite months of exceptionally gruesome fighting. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, the authorities also banned the use of drones ahead of a parade. The use of drones has been once again banned in the Russian capital, and car sharing services have been temporarily barred from the city center, with users unable to start or finish rides there. The famed parade in Moscow’s Red Square will go ahead following Russia’s claim of an attempted Ukrainian drone attack on the Kremlin, whose spires loom next to the parade venue, but amid ramped-up security measures. However, many regions have canceled their May 9 observances because of concerns the events could be targets for Ukrainian attacks. The Soviet Union lost at least 20 million people in the war the suffering and valor that went into the German defeat have been touchstones ever since. The holiday falling on Tuesday marks the 78th anniversary of Germany’s capitulation in World War II after a relentless Red Army offensive pushed German forces from Stalingrad, deep inside Russia, all the way to Berlin, about 2,200 kilometers (1,300 miles). But the war in Ukraine undermines both this year. Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, lauds two tenets that are central to its identity: military might and moral rectitude.
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