“Today we see how they’re trying to distort the truth about WWII. It interferes with those who are used to building their essentially colonial policy based on hypocrisy and lies,” the freshly (re)inaugurated president told the assembled crowd, according to the Russian press.
The Red Army was part of a much broader allied coalition including the U.S., the U.K., Poland, France, Canada and others.
Soviet Victory Day, commemorated a day later than the day marked by the other allies, also signals the beginning of the USSR’s half-century occupation of most of Central and Eastern Europe, mass deportations to Siberia and forced collectivization of local economies.
Although Russia was only a part of the USSR, today’s Russia has tried to monopolize the Soviet victory as its own, and Putin uses the memory of the war to buttress Russian nationalism.
That extends to tarring opponents of his regime as “Nazis.”
“Revanchism, abuse of history, and an attempt to justify the current Nazi followers is part of an overall policy of the Western elites to stoke new regional conflicts,” Putin said, referring to the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who he regularly accuses of being a neo-Nazi.