The Parade in Moscow: To Be or Not to Be?

This article appears after the World War II commemorative parades in Moscow and other Russian cities have already taken place. Yet rather than demonstrating confidence and stability, this year’s Victory Day celebrations exposed growing insecurity inside Russia itself. The parades were overshadowed by exceptionally tight security measures, the constant threat of possible Ukrainian drone attacks, visible nervousness among the authorities, and a noticeably reduced display of military hardware. Instead of projecting unquestionable strength, the events highlighted the pressures, vulnerabilities, and strategic uncertainty Russia faces more than four years into the war against Ukraine.

And this is perhaps the greatest paradox of this year’s parade. Victory Day long served as one of the central symbols of the Putin regime’s strength. A ritual designed to demonstrate state power, social unity and a sense of historical righteousness. Yet today another side is becoming increasingly visible: war fatigue, tightening information control, internet restrictions, Ukrainian strikes against energy infrastructure, and growing tensions even within the regime itself. Rumors are circulating ever more frequently in Russia about possible changes at the top of Vladimir Putin’s “power vertical” or even the removal of  Putin himself. Just a few years ago, such discussions seemed impossible.

In a certain sense, the parade itself has become a symbol of how profoundly Russia has changed. Once, the Soviet victory in World War II was one of the few themes that at least partially united Russia and the West. But after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, and especially after the full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022, that connection effectively collapsed. Victory Day in Russia has transformed from historical remembrance into a geopolitical and ideological instrument.

It is also symbolic that the duration of the so-called “special military operation” has already exceeded the number of days of the so-called Great Patriotic War. For part of Russian society, this seems almost like a mystical sign. Yet while the Soviet Union emerged from the war in 1945 as a victorious state, today’s Russia, despite enormous losses and resources, has achieved no comparable outcome in its war against Ukraine. This is where the regime’s deeper frustration lies.

An ironic comment about Russian “victories” has long circulated online: Russians once defeated the Swedes, and today Sweden is one of the world’s wealthiest and safest countries; they defeated the Germans, and Germany built Europe’s strongest economy; they defeated the Japanese, and Japan became a technological superpower. Meanwhile, the “victors” themselves often remain trapped in stagnation, poverty, resentment toward the world, and a perpetual war with the past. This irony captures Russia’s current dilemma precisely: the regime still lives through victory over others but can no longer offer its own people an attractive vision of the future.

That is why it is worth looking deeper than the parade itself or its technical aspects. The question is not merely how the May 9 events appeared. Far more important is why they matter so much to today’s Russia and what function they serve within Putin’s system.

During Putin’s rule, the theme of victory in World War II has become not merely an interpretation of history, but one of the regime’s primary sources of legitimacy. It is no longer simply memory about the past. It is an actively constructed narrative shaping modern Russian identity and the broader concept of the “Russkiy Mir” - a world in which Russia possesses a special historical mission and an exclusive right to determine what constitutes “true history.” While living in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, I repeatedly heard the narrative that Russians are the fighters against fascism, whereas Ukrainians and we “Balts” are the fascists.

This did not happen accidentally. When I began my work in Moscow as Lithuania’s ambassador to Russia in the spring of 2020, the country was intensively preparing for the 75th anniversary of Victory Day. I vividly remember the constant rehearsals of military equipment in Moscow streets, tanks and other military hardware moving through the city centre toward rehearsals on Red Square. Even some Russian commentators ironically used the term “pobedobesiye” - a combination of the words “victory” and “hysteria.” It accurately described the growing militarized cult of Victory.

Not even the pandemic stopped this process. Although the May 2020 parade was postponed due to COVID-19, it still took place on June 24. Just days before the parade, Putin published a programmatic article in The National Interest titled “The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II.” Formally, it was a text about history. In reality, it was an ideological manifesto whose core theses remain among the foundations of Putin’s worldview today.

In the article, Putin presented a rather aggressive logic of Russia’s role in the world. According to this narrative, the Soviet Union was the principal victor over Nazism, the greatest victim of the war, and the state that saved the world. From this victory, in Putin’s understanding, derives not only historical memory but also Russia’s present-day right to a special status in the international system. Victory in war is transformed not into a past event, but into a source of contemporary politics.

The text also clearly shifts blame onto the West. The Versailles system, the Munich Agreement and Western “appeasement” of Hitler are presented in such a way that Soviet actions appear rational and unavoidable acts of self-defense. Even the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact becomes, in this narrative, not a criminal agreement with Nazi Germany, but almost a necessary strategic measure.

This is where the most dangerous part of the text emerges. Soviet crimes are either silenced or dissolved within broader explanations of “historical circumstances.” The occupation of the Baltic states is presented as a process carried out “on a contractual basis.” The mass execution of thousands of Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD in 1940 at Katyn, political repressions, mass deportations of Soviet citizens and the forced redrawing of territories remain outside the frame. All history is reduced to one simple formula: Russia has always defended the world from evil.

Even more importantly, through history Putin formulates political claims about the present. His article essentially argues that if Russia was the principal savior of the world in 1945, then it still has the right today to determine questions of world order from a privileged position.

This explains why the article devoted so much attention to the United Nations, the Security Council veto and the format of the five nuclear powers. Putin proposed returning to a world in which major powers settle global issues among themselves, while the security of smaller states becomes an object of negotiation. This is not a lesson about history. It is a geopolitical program, one which Putin has never abandoned.

This logic is especially important when analyzing the Victory Day parade. It becomes not merely a ritual of remembrance, but an annual reaffirmation of this worldview. Red Square becomes a stage on which Russia reminds itself and the world: we were the victors, therefore we have the right to be heard.

The problem is that this logic no longer distinguishes history from propaganda. It does not allow recognition of a complex past, because all history must serve the current authorities. It does not allow the Baltic states, Poland or other Eastern European countries to possess their own historical experiences if those experiences contradict Moscow’s narrative.

That is why Putin’s 2020 article today appears even more significant now  than when it was published. Almost the entire ideological framework of contemporary Russia was already embedded within it: Russia as the eternal victor, the West as falsifiers of history, and Moscow as the sole legitimate guardian of “historical truth.”

Of course, the fact that for more than four years Ukraine has not only withstood Russia’s war machine, but increasingly appears to be seizing the initiative, has significantly undermined this narrative.

Victory Day parades long ago ceased to be merely commemorations of history. They are visual continuations of the Putin regime’s ideology, in which the memory of World War II is used to justify present-day politics.

Victory Day in Russia has become a political “super-narrative” legitimizing militarization, repression, confrontation with the West and the war against Ukraine. The parade serves less to remember the victims of war than to create an emotional and civilizational link between the victory of 1945 and Russia’s current geopolitical ambitions.

It is no coincidence that in the official narrative the war begins on June 22, 1941, bypassing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the occupation of the Baltic states and Soviet aggression against Poland and Finland. In this way, a framework is created in which Russia is always the defender and never the aggressor.

In Putin’s Russia, history is no longer a subject for discussion. It has become a state-controlled political technology. Any more complex interpretation of the Soviet Union’s role in the war is treated almost as disloyalty to the state.

Therefore, Victory Day today is not really about the past. Each year it renews the central myth promoted by the Russian state: “we are surrounded, we are attacked, but we will prevail.” The less the regime can offer a vision of the future, the more heavily it relies on victory in the past.

Yet this is also where its weakness lies. An identity built entirely on past wars may mobilize society, but it cannot offer a future.

Let us hope that Ukraine’s victory, Western sanctions and pressure on Russia, and changes within Russian society itself will one day bring this Russian “vision” to an end. That day will come and the world will be better for it.

Featured Image: OpenAI ChatGPT image generation (2026). Produced for Delphi Global Research Center.