“We always were and always will be victorious!” declared President Putin in his speech at the May 9 Victory Day parade on Red Square. Russians watching on TV, as they have for decades, would have been forgiven for asking why, in that case, this year’s military show looked anything but victorious.
Since 1965, when Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev decided to turn May 9 into the cornerstone of Soviet ideology built around the Soviet Union’s sacrifices during World War II, the military parades on Red Square broadcast brash and brazenly political messages to the world.
As in May last year, when the presence of the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Venezuelan leaders (29 foreign leaders in total) was meant to signal the strength of the geopolitical alliances Vladimir Putin could still count on despite sanctions; the participation of troops from 13 foreign countries suggested those alliances could have a military dimension; and new military equipment intended to demonstrate that the Russian military-industrial complex remained capable of innovation despite sanctions and the costs of the ongoing war.
The event has also been an annual gift from the Kremlin to the people, offering an (increasingly rare) occasion to feel a sense of national pride.
None of those elements were present this year.
A hugely downsized version of the parade — much shorter in time and in the numbers involved, without any tanks, armored vehicles, or rocket launchers —against the backdrop of multiplying Ukrainian drone strikes deep inside Russian territory in recent weeks, produced a very different feeling. A feeling of fatigue has combined with a sense that the Kremlin is losing its sense of purpose after more than four years of war against Ukraine.
A day always built around symbolism now symbolized something else entirely: a glaring contrast between what the Red Army achieved in 47 months of war against Nazi Germany, and where Putin’s army stands after more than 50 months of fighting. The conclusions are unforgiving and unavoidable, even for regime loyalists.
Still more annoying for Putin’s supporters is that an event on Red Square purporting to be the showcase of Russian military might now depends so much on President Zelenskyy’s behavior and, in particular, whether he chooses to strike Russia on that day. In the end, President Trump and his aides intervened to broker a short-term ceasefire, although this left Ukraine with bragging rights that infuriated Russian nationalists.
The Ukrainian threat is now obvious to everyone.
The drone attacks across Russia’s regions in the weeks ahead of the celebration created a rather unsettling anticipation that something really bad could happen on that day (one open source analyst estimates that around 7,000 Ukrainian drones were launched into Russian territory in March, outnumbering the Kremlin’s aerial barrage for the first time).
Russian countermeasures only deepened the impact. There was constant internet disruption to confuse Ukrainian drones, including the total blocking of mobile internet connection on the day of the parade. It is hardly conducive to a sober remembrance of the Red Army’s bravery.
War fatigue is now new. It became palpable across Russia last year, when the hopes the elite had placed in Trump making a peace deal disappeared, and it only deepened this year. It appears that nobody wants to talk about the war anymore — it has become the great unmentionable — but even those who tried to avoid thinking about Ukraine and distance themselves as much as possible from the suffering there could not escape its effects. The war is a constant and deeply irritating background presence, making everything worse — from the economy and everyday life to travel and communications.
So if Russians hoped for anything on Victory Day, it was some pointer from the Kremlin on what to expect in the war’s future.
Indeed, in the weeks ahead of the parade, several Russian media outlets were briefed by the Kremlin to pay close attention to Putin’s speech, which, journalists were told, would carry particular significance.
It didn’t. The only new element in Putin’s speech was an attack on Europeans, whom he described now as the “obedient accomplices” of [Nazi] crimes. ”
Yet even this was directed at the past, not the future — and it offered little beyond a growing sense that the Kremlin itself had lost direction.
Later that night, when Putin — visibly relieved that no attack had taken place — answered reporters’ questions in the Kremlin, he sounded more cheerful, but no closer to explaining how Moscow saw the war ending.
On the contrary, when he made the obligatory remarks about the approaching end of hostilities and his readiness to meet Zelenskyy, he immediately added so many caveats that it became obvious he was merely addressing the US administration; otherwise, it would have appeared that Trump had handed Putin a gift while receiving nothing in return.
As for where the war may be headed, Russians are none the wiser. They might rightly worry that their leader is saying so little on the subject because he is equally unsure what to do next. Victory seems a very, very long way away.
Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov are Non-resident Senior Fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). They are Russian investigative journalists and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities. Their book Our Dear Friends in Moscow, The Inside Story of a Broken Generation was published in 2025.
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.
