President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday vowed Russia would be victorious in Ukraine during a military parade on Red Square and blamed Western countries for the conflict, comparing the fighting to World War II.
On the same day, the United States announced a $1.2-bn security assistance package for Ukraine, which has been battling Russian troops for the past 15 months. During his Red Square address, Putin told columns of military personnel in ceremonial uniform that the country’s future rests on Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
“Today civilisation is again at a decisive turning point,” Putin said, standing shoulder to shoulder with elderly veterans and soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
“A war has been unleashed against our motherland,” he said, adding that “the future of our statehood and our people depend on you.” “For Russia, for our armed forces, for victory! Hurrah!” Putin was joined on Red Square by leaders of seven ex-Soviet states, including Armenia and Kazakhstan.
But the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany 78 years ago has been overshadowed by the military’s slow gains and heavy losses in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of mercenary group Wagner, released a new expletive-ridden video, accusing a Russian unit of abandoning their positions near Bakhmut, the epicentre of the fighting in Ukraine.
“They all fled, exposing the front,” Prigozhin said, repeating a vow that his men would leave Bakhmut by May 10 if the military does not supply more ammunition. Wagner has been leading Russia’s months-long assault for Bakhmut, a destroyed industrial town in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have little to show after a winter offensive.
“Why is the state not able to defend its country?” Prigozhin said in the scathing video, in which he also accused Russia’s top brass of trying to “deceive” Putin on how the Ukraine campaign was being led.