Russia has beefed up security in Moscow, especially near Red Square, where it will celebrate Victory Day on Tuesday, May 9th, to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s historic victory against Nazi Germany. Special security measures have been taken given the recent terrorist drone strike on the Kremlin.
Moscow has accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s regime of the drone attack on the Kremlin that allegedly targeted Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow alleges that the Kiev regime is attempting to foil the Victory Day celebration at Red Square. According to Russia, the Ukrainian regime glorifies the Nazi aggressors and their puppet Stepan Bandera, who is eulogised by neo-Nazis in the breakaway Soviet republic.
“All the necessary measures are being taken to ensure security, especially when foreign guests, our head of state will be in attendance. Everything that is required by law is being done to that end”, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told Channel One television on Monday, May 8th.
Earlier, Russia’s former president and the deputy chairman of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev had threatened to ‘eliminate’ Zelenskyy over the failed drone attack on the Kremlin. Zelenskyy had reportedly fled from Ukraine after the attack to avoid any Russian strike.
Russian President Putin will be present at the Victory Day parade at Red Square, which will commemorate the valour and sacrifice of the Soviet Union’s people and its Red Army in fighting and defeating the Nazi aggressors.
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon will also attend the Victory Day parade in Moscow’s Red Square along with Putin as part of the delegates from the former Soviet Union’s republics.
Putin’s principal opponent, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) has objected to the current format of the Victory Day parade, where the Lenin Mausoleum, where the embalmed body of the Soviet Union’s founder VI Lenin is kept, is concealed by façades. It had requested Putin to attend the meeting atop the Lenin Mausoleum, which the Kremlin didn’t accept.
Ukraine’s government has reportedly, following its “decommunization” programme, abolished the term “Victory Day” and renamed the crucial day “Europe Day”. “[Hereby to] establish Europe Day in Ukraine, which is celebrated annually on May 9 together with the states of the European Union (sic)”, the TASS quoted Zelenskyy’s decree. In 2022, in an apparent bid to oppose Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s government published the photograph of a soldier on Victory Day who was wearing an emblem similar to that of Nazi Germany’s SS Totenkopf division.
