“Dad, nothing is happening”: this is how people in Moscow react to Putin’s mini-parade

The girl took her fluffy unicorn with her. In his pink jacket, he sits on his father’s shoulders and waves the flag. “Dad, nothing is going to happen. There will be no tanks,” says the five-year-old on Moscow’s New Arbat boulevard.

Hundreds of spectators stand watching the military equipment that just rolled across Red Square. They cheer, they shout “Forward, Russia”. And they are disappointed. “So little is happening this year,” says the girl’s father in pink. “I wanted to show my daughter how big and powerful our country is.” His wife adds: “We have to instill our will to win in the little ones with their mother’s milk.”

Russia is celebrating its “holiest” holiday, its victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. It is doing so for the second time amid acts of war ordered by its own president. Vladimir Putin shamelessly draws a line from the past to the war of annihilation against Ukraine, euphemistically called “special military operations” in Russia.

Putin’s cynical reversal: “A war has been unleashed against our homeland. The goal of Russia’s opponents is the disintegration of our country,” he claims on the red square podium, inspecting the “Victory Day” parade surrounded by by elderly and decorated veterans and heads of state and government from the ex-Soviet republics of Belarus, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.

Three times smaller than previous years

Again he speaks of the “criminal and murderous” West taking the “Ukrainian people hostage”. Meanwhile, more than 500 participants in Ukraine’s so-called “military special operation” march across Red Square. “There is currently no more important task than combat operations. The country is united in boundless love to support our heroes,” Putin said.

Applause erupts on the Nieuwe Arbat, where several cafés broadcast the speech on large screens. This year’s parade is three times smaller than the military gathering in previous years. The people immediately justify their dissatisfaction with the “much too modest military technology”, as some lament, with “more important tasks than rolling over Red Square”. So says Anna, who wrapped herself in the flag of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”.

Eight months ago, the 48-year-old fled from eastern Ukraine to Moscow to her daughter, who has lived in the Russian capital since 2018. “I know what war means. Seeing the rocket launchers here makes me cringe. But I also feel the pride, the love for Russia because it protects me. Ukraine should wake up, everyone should be killed there. Oh, now sound me as a fascist. I just want Vladimir Putin to bring back the Soviet Union so we can all live together peacefully.” For Anna and everyone else cheering here, one thing is clear: “Russia is good, the West is bad.”

Not everyone in Moscow is cheering

Such sentences are unbearable for Alexei from Moscow. For years he has been fleeing the city on May 9 to escape what he calls “the madness that makes so many dance on the bones of their ancestors”. Alexei says, “We should rather quietly mourn our fallen relatives and not shout how wonderful we are.”

Meanwhile, 38-year-old Svetlana doesn’t want to hear much about Ukraine. “There’s so much negativity out there, why should I be upset about it?” she asks. Her four-year-old daughter jumps around her, the eight-year-old stands at the metal roadblock to see the military vehicles. “It is important that they know how powerful our country is,” says Svetlana.

It is a phrase that often passes by that day. Fathers say it, mothers, they look at their children and repeat: “Isn’t it, Yaroslav? It is important that we celebrate the victory. Isn’t it, Weronika? It is important that we know the great deeds of our army. ” Why? The fathers and mothers are silent. “Because it’s important. We’re a great country,” says Svetlana defiantly.

Many families stroll through the downtown area, some children wearing olive green uniforms and holding toy guns. The parents find it “sweet”. “A fighter is growing up,” some say. People wave Russian and some Soviet flags. At the end of the 45-minute parade, they move into the city parks, there is food from the field kitchen and almost 20 fireworks in the evening.

The president, who sees himself fighting for a “civilized world” and committing war crimes in Ukraine, always prides himself on being the guarantor of security. But the violence that Russia has sown has long since spread to its own country. Oil depots are on fire, returning fighters are killing relatives, bombings are being carried out on ardent war supporters, suddenly drones are flying over the Kremlin.

The echo of war shakes the country. On the New Arbat, people say, “Oh, let’s get on with the bad news. Today is a holiday, we want to celebrate that.” (aargauerzeitung.ch)