![]() ![]() On the political side, she sees no real incentive for either side to compromise. In terms of how the war evolves, she expects the fighting to drag on through the northern summer, over modest patches of territory that might change hands back and forth, with small villages and towns destroyed in the process and Russia occasionally bombarding cities to frighten the population and demonstrate force. It’s not his first rodeo or Russia’s with propaganda.” “Putin’s proven himself quite capable of twisting truths and reorganising the narrative in a way that might seem logically unsound but resonates nonetheless. “Since it is May 9, they will evoke the Great Patriotic War and portray this moment as another when the Russian people must be steadfast and heroic while under attack,” she says. “He will insist that the US and NATO are willing to risk continued violence and economic downturn around the world just to humiliate Russia and limit its power in the international order,” she says. Konaev expects that to save face, Putin will try to distract from the reality of the war and double down on the narrative that has worked thus far: a call to nationalism and the argument that this is a war forced on the Russians by NATO expansion and that Ukraine is not a real country. – Margarita Konaev, research fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology Victory Day, which Moscow is currently preparing for, is likely to include portrayals of the current moment as a time when Russian people must be ‘heroic while under attack,’ says Margarita Konaev, a research fellow at Georgetown University in the US ‘Putin’s proven himself quite capable of twisting truths’ As the war on which he staked his tough-man reputation, as well as his country’s economy, fails to meet any of its objectives, how will Putin frame “victory” on May 9? And what are his military prospects for the months to come?Īl Jazeera sought answers from three defence experts who focus on the Russian military and security. The war now seems to be entering an attritional phase, where each side will try to wear the other down with no clear advantage by either. The vastly outnumbered Ukrainian military prevented the fall of their capital and pushed back against massive force. On some level, one could argue that Ukraine has already won strategically because it united NATO and demonstrated effective wartime leadership. The highly motivated Ukrainians continue to enjoy Western support and will fight fiercely to defend their territory. Having failed to occupy all of Ukraine, it remains unclear what victory would mean to Putin at this point. Winning means different things to different people. Over the past week, that offensive, too, has struggled to gain any significant ground. Yet securing that front by May 9 to declare triumph looks unlikely. Beaten back from Kyiv, the Russians have recalibrated to the Donbas region in the south and east to solidify territory they have occupied since 2014 and gain more. The Russians underestimated their much smaller adversary or that a unified West would firehose billions of dollars of military support to Ukraine. What the world thought was a relatively modern and well-equipped army performed shockingly badly. Supply lines were attacked and stretched as troops scattered on too many fronts. Tactical mistakes led to catastrophic Russian losses that the United Kingdom estimates at 15,000 over just two months. President Vladimir Putin has failed at his aim to take over Ukraine, a country he wrongly assumed would be a walkover. The Kremlin does not have much to celebrate, however. Fighter jets will fly above in a Z formation, the symbol of the invasion of Ukraine. ![]() Show stoppers include an intercontinental ballistic missile and 11,000 marching forces. Rehearsals on the streets in front of the Kremlin in recent days hint at the spectacle next week. Celebrating what is known locally as the “Great Patriotic War” is used to stir nationalism and pay homage to the 24 million lives lost to fend off Hitler. Formations, tanks and sophisticated hardware go on display to remind the world of Russia’s lasting power. Falling on May 9, it commemorates the Nazi surrender of World War II with a lavish spectacle meant to project might. Russia’s Victory Day parade is an annual extravagance in Red Square. ![]()
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