My thoughts on VE Day in Moscow

Victory Day, or VE day, is commemorated across Europe this week as a day of liberation and victory over the murderous Nazi regime. In Russia, this is a day of particular importance, as no country had suffered greater losses during World War II, following Hitler’s unprovoked invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

And yet, this year’s celebrations in Moscow’s Red Square will forever be tainted, as long as Russian troops continue their relentless attack on neighbouring Ukraine. As I’m writing this, air raids and drone attacks on civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities carry on, up until the last minute before Putin’s self-imposed three-day ceasefire, which Ukraine’s courageous President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has aptly called a “theatrical play.”

It strikes me as the ultimate sign of Putin’s selfishness and hypocrisy to celebrate the end of a war of aggression whilst at the same time pursuing another war of aggression that shows all the signs of a land grab – including countless well-documented war crimes and atrocities, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Russian casualties that don’t seem to matter one bit in the dictator’s dark plan.

Russian veterans of World War II, some still alive, must be aghast at what they have been seeing for the last three years. Whilst fighting under the rule of a ruthless dictator themselves, at least they knew that defeating fascism was a worthwhile mission. Their contemporary brothers and sisters in arms know neither what they are fighting for, nor what they are fighting against. They are pawns in a cynical and personal power play, dying en masse as their ruler isolates himself and his country from the civilised world. What a terrible legacy for Vladimir Putin to leave. And what an awful burden for ordinary Russians to bear for years to come, knowing that many don’t share their leader’s sinister vision.