How Putin fashioned Victory Day to serve his own ends
In cities across Russia on Monday, tanks and missile trucks growled their way along the main streets. Soldiers marched across central squares. Fighter jets roared overhead.
Victory Day, when Russians celebrate the 1945 endpoint of what they still call the “great patriotic war”, has become the centrepiece of Vladimir Putin’s concept of Russian identity over his two decades in charge. This year, as the Russian army’s gruesome assault on Ukraine grinds on, the day held particular resonance.
Across Russia, some families quietly remembered the ancestors who gave their lives in the fight against Nazism, or toasted the few veterans still alive. Others took a more bombastic approach in line with the official messaging, perhaps adding a papier mache turret to their child’s pushchair to
