The Victory Day celebrations in Moscow, celebrating the end of World War II, or in the Russian framing, victory in the Great Patriotic War, signaled an unexpected yet strategically significant Ukrainian success.
This success has not been fully appreciated outside the context of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s semi-humorous decree “permitting” the parade to go ahead in Moscow. But the real story goes well beyond that joke.
Protagonists of authoritarian regimes dominated by a single man emphasize their capacity to change course by the sheer force of the leader’s will. This is frequently cited as their competitive advantage. It gives them freedom from public opinion and the procedural constraints that encumber democracies. This year’s May 9 celebrations in Moscow revealed that even authoritarian systems have important limits, and that crossing those boundaries carries serious risks.
A defining ideological pillar of Putin’s regime has been its worship of the past. Lacking any coherent vision of the future, the Kremlin has invested heavily in controlling historical memory, monopolizing coverage of the iconic figures and events while suppressing independent or alternative interpretations of history.
At the center of this effort stands the cult of victory in the Great Patriotic War. It is designed to project a powerful symbolism of sacrifice, heroism, unity, and statehood, while ultimately legitimizing the narratives of Russian greatness and permanent struggle. Under Putin, Victory Day evolved from a commemoration into a state cult. Official propaganda entirely eclipsed the personal and family-centered traditions of remembrance. Military hardware made its formal debut during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency in 2008, though Medvedev had held office for just one day when that innovation was introduced.
Since then, the display of heavy military equipment has become an indispensable attribute of celebrations. This was largely the product of propaganda itself, which placed particular emphasis on the firepower of the weapons on display, the latest models and developments, and the precision of air force aerobatics. The hardware procession and the march of military formations were the centerpiece and longest segment of the spectacle.
The war against Ukraine, which began in 2022, affected the format of the celebrations but not in any significant way. Certain units were absent and the volume of equipment was reduced. Yet these adjustments had no real impact on the parade’s visual concept, as they were imperceptible to viewers.
By 2025-2026, the nature of the war had changed substantially. Drones emerged as a decisive factor both along the front line and in strikes deep inside Russian territory. Ukrainian drones now routinely cover vast distances, penetrating air defense systems to hit targets in Murmansk, the Leningrad region, the Volga basin, and even the Urals. Airports in St. Petersburg and Moscow have been regularly forced to suspend operations due to drone threats.
Such activity has become much more frequent and damaging this year (one open source analyst counted more than 7,000 drone attacks against Russia in March alone, more than the Russian drone strikes launched against Ukraine).
By May, the Kremlin found that no air defense system could guarantee a drone-free zone inside Red Square. The possibilities were too much for Putin and his aides to bear — a single UAV could have struck the parade on live TV, sending thousands of spectators fleeing in panic. For a regime built on projecting strength and cultivating the cult of victory, that would have been catastrophic. The vulnerability was so serious that on April 29, a call took place between Presidents Trump and Putin, after which Trump proposed a three-day ceasefire. It seems more than clear that this resulted from the Russian president’s plea for US help in constraining Ukraine.
For Zelenskyy, this represented a significant strategic turning point. He could reasonably have rejected the unsolicited ceasefire proposal. After all, it is understood even within Russia that the pause served only the Kremlin and was solely designed to allow the parade. The risk of refusal, however, was real: the White House would almost certainly have reacted poorly, and the prospects of even modest future support for Ukraine would have diminished considerably.
By accepting the ceasefire, Zelenskyy secured a meaningful political and potentially diplomatic victory in the context of future peace negotiations.
That victory has four distinct dimensions.
First, Washington and Moscow were compelled by circumstance to recognize Kyiv’s independent military capabilities, entirely separate from allied assistance.
Second, Zelenskyy found himself, for the first time, in the position of being asked for a favor, albeit through an intermediary, by the very side that publicly declares its intent to defeat him.
Third, by accepting the ceasefire proposal, he neutralized accusations of warmongering. Zelenskyy offered to extend the ceasefire, a position endorsed by President Trump. Only the Kremlin, speaking through a presidential aide , Ushakov, pushed back, insisting that no agreement for a longer pause had been reached. In doing so, Moscow denied Zelenskyy’s Western critics’ arguments to work with.
And fourth, Zelenskyy’s willingness to accept terms that served only Moscow’s interests now places the Kremlin in the position of having to reciprocate when the White House comes calling.
Perhaps most significantly, however, the shifting military balance enabled by technological development has allowed Kyiv to achieve something even more consequential inside Russia itself.
For the first time in many years, the country watched a low-key parade where the only drama was the possibility of disruption. As Russians observed their government effectively coordinating the parade schedule with Kyiv, while internet access was cut in major cities, disrupting businesses and stripping citizens of basic services, and as refineries burned, more and more began asking whether their country was moving in the right direction.
This shift alone will not bring peace negotiations closer. But it adds to the mounting pressures on Russia’s domestic politics, alongside a strained federal budget and the absence of economic growth.
Autocrats are surely less dependent on electoral consent than democratic leaders, but they cannot be indifferent to public sentiment. They monitor it carefully, as the Kremlin routinely does, and manage risk accordingly.
A change in course — and remember this might even include a harder line — becomes more likely when internal pressures of this kind accumulate.
Dr. Evgeny Roshchin leads the Democratic Resilience program at CEPA and serves as a Visiting Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is the author of “Professorial Silence”, “Exit as Voice”, “Crime and Punishment in International Politics” and many other academic articles, and media commentaries.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
