Never Again?

​Across Europe, commemorations took place last week to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The ceremonies have been solemn yet celebratory, their enduring message: "Never Again". 

As war between two nations rages again across a corner of Europe, Russia and Ukraine marked the anniversary in decidedly different ways.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of remembrance of the tragedies of the last war and commemorated those who fought against the evils of Nazism, while Russia glorified the war with a triumphant parade of its military might. The message of Russia’s war commemoration was not “Never Again”, but “We can do it again”.

I remember being in the southern Russian city of Voronezh for Victory Day back in 1992. It was a beautiful, sunny day, one of the first warm days after a long, bleak winter. The main street was closed to traffic and it felt like the city’s entire population was there, walking slowly towards the war memorial to lay flowers. 

Solemn music played over loudspeakers as veterans paraded in all their military regalia, bedecked with medals, and accompanied by their families. Mothers were dressed up in their Sunday best, keeping tight control of their children: little girls in neat skirts with over-sized bows in their hair, little boys buttoned up with braces and jackets too warm for the weather. 

It was a very serious occasion. There was no sense of jubilation or celebration. The Soviet Union paid an exceedingly heavy price for its victory in the Great Patriotic War, as it is known. An estimated 27 million Soviet citizens died during the war; every family lost a son, a brother, a father, an uncle. Millions were displaced, everyone suffered.

Under President Vladimir Putin, Victory Day has changed. It has become a showcase for Russia’s military glory, all glitz and glamour, pomp and celebration, triumph and exultation. The weaponisation of the allied victory in World War II provides a means for Putin to spread his propaganda, depicting Russia as the liberator, and all who opposed it as Nazis. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939 that made allies of the Soviet and German wartime leaders Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, enabling them to carve up Eastern Europe between them, is conveniently forgotten.

Hand-in-hand with Putin’s glorification of the Great Patriotic War is his rehabilitation of Stalin. Long vilified as a cruel, paranoid and ruthless dictator, responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens, the Kremlin is glossing over Stalin’s crimes.

There is no mention in Russia these days of the mass deportations, the purges, the terror and, of course, the Holodomor of 1932-33 when millions of Ukrainians died of hunger in a famine that was deliberate, premeditated and avoidable. 

Last month Putin signed a decree renaming Volgograd’s international airport as “Stalingrad” and on 8 May a monument to Stalin was unveiled in occupied Melitopol, in Zaporizhzhia region. The town was taken by the Russians in March 2022 in the early days of the full-scale invasion.

Also redacted from the Russian version of history is the contribution of the other Soviet republics to the victory over Nazi Germany. More than 6 million Ukrainians fought in the Red Army, and Ukrainians paid the greatest price of all - at least 8 million were killed, a staggeringly high proportion of the population of 41 million.

This year, as Putin comes under pressure to end his war in Ukraine, he wanted Victory Day to be better than ever. He sent out invitations to dozens of foreign leaders in an attempt to emphasise  Russia’s standing on the world stage, 27 of whom accepted his invitation. At the parade he was flanked by Chinese president Xi Jinping as they watched more than 100 Chinese soldiers marching on Red Square, cementing the “no limits friendship” between the two countries.

The leaders of Brazil, Venezuela, Serbia and Slovakia, among others, were visible in the crowd. Last year just nine foreign dignitaries turned up - longstanding allies like President Lukashenko of Belarus. In 2022, in the wake of the full-scale invasion there were none at all. Russia is sending a message that its isolation is over and it’s back on the world stage.

In the run-up to the parade, the Kremlin blockaded the centre of Moscow and restricted internet access across the city. These measures were an attempt to prevent Kyiv from embarrassing Putin by marring his Victory Day parade with drone strikes. In the run-up to the event, Ukrainian drones repeatedly targeted the Russian capital, paralysing Moscow’s airspace and closing all the city’s airports. Around 350 flights were delayed, diverted or cancelled over three days. 

Among those affected was Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić, whose plane was reportedly forced to divert to the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, because of the threat to Russian airspace. President Zelensky stated that “Ukraine is not responsible for the safety of foreign officials” visiting Moscow for the parade.
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Moscow’s imposition of a three-day “humanitarian ceasefire” from 8-11 May to coincide with Victory Day was also widely seen as an attempt to deter Ukraine from targeting Moscow during the parade. Both side reported hundreds of breaches of the ceasefire with heavy fighting continuing across multiple regions. As the Kremlin continues to resist the unconditional 30-day ceasefire demanded by the West and counter it with his own proposals, peace feels as distant as ever.

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