Russian prez likely to make announcement on Ukraine during WWII parade

Ahead of May 9, speculation swirled across Moscow and Western capitals that Putin was preparing some sort of special announcement on Ukraine, perhaps an outright declaration of war or even a national mobilisation.

To lead the celebrations, Putin will speak on Red Square. However, the Kremlin is tight-lipped on what Putin might say in his speech. Following the speech, a parade of troops, tanks, rockets and intercontinental ballistic missiles have been organised.

A fly-past over St Basil’s Cathedral will include supersonic fighters, Tu-160 strategic bombers and, for the first time since 2010, the Il-80 “doomsday” command plane, which would carry Russia’s top brass in the event of a nuclear war, the Defence Ministry said.

Less than two decades ago, U.S. President George W. Bush joined Putin for the May 9 celebrations in Moscow. This year no Western leader was invited, the Kremlin said.

In that scenario, the Il-80 is designed to become the roaming command centre for the Russian president. It is packed with technology but specific details are Russian state secrets.

From the beginning, Putin has repeatedly likened the war in Ukraine to the challenge the Soviet Union faced when Adolf Hitler’s Nazis invaded in 1941.

“The attempt to appease the aggressor on the eve of the Great Patriotic War turned out to be a mistake that cost our people dearly,” Putin said on Feb. 24 when he announced what he called a special military operation in Ukraine.

“We will not make such a mistake a second time, we have no right.”

Putin casts the war in Ukraine as a battle to protect Russian speakers there from persecution by Nazis and to guard against what he terms the U.S. threat to Russia posed by NATO enlargement. Ukraine and the West dismiss the fascism claim as nonsense and say Putin is waging an unprovoked war of aggression.

The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in World War Two, more than any other country, and Putin has railed in recent years at what Moscow sees as attempts in the West to revise the history of the war to belittle the Soviet victory.