How Putin Co-opted Russia’s Biggest Holiday
For years, President Vladimir V. Putin has taken advantage of Victory Day — when Russians commemorate the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany — to champion his country’s military might and project himself as a leader of enormous power. This year, he drew on the pageantry of May 9 for an even more pressing goal: making the case for the war in Ukraine. Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.
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Show Notes
For years, President Vladimir V. Putin has taken advantage of Victory Day — when Russians commemorate the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany — to champion his country’s military might and project himself as a leader of enormous power.
This year, he drew on the pageantry of May 9 for an even more pressing goal: making the case for the war in Ukraine.
Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.
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Background reading:
- Victory Day in Moscow this year was set up to be a lavish government-orchestrated show of Russian strength and a claim of rightful dominance over a lost empire.
- Mr. Putin delivered a speech in which he vowed that the military would keep fighting to rid Ukraine, in his false telling, of “torturers, death squads and Nazis.”
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