Correspondent in Moscow
Troops of the three armies, armored vehicles of all kinds, planes - including the famous TU 160 bombers -, S400 missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles lying on their impressive mobile launchers of one hundred tons (and sixteen wheels): the military equipment that will parade on Red Square in front of 12,500 people, this Sunday, May 9, will complete the martial messages sent by Russia in recent weeks, at the border of Ukraine, in a context of strong international tensions.
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In Moscow, whose center was blocked this week for three rehearsals of the grand parade, "Victory Day" is displayed everywhere, including in the metro, some trains having been redecorated with the effigy of Soviet marshals.
Last year, pandemic obliges, the ceremonies of the 75th anniversary - announced as the major event of 2020 -, were postponed by several weeks and took place, on June 24, without the world areopagus expected by Vladimir Putin.
This year, the 76th anniversary of the end of the "Great Patriotic War", will not justify any particular deployment and the only guest should be the President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon.
Bonus of 10,000 rubles
But this day nonetheless remains a major marker of the national narrative developed by the Russian authorities.
"Years will pass, decades will pass, but in our country, May 9 will remain the most important, most sacred holiday,"
Vladimir Putin said recently, addressing veterans. This year they will receive a bonus of 10,000 rubles (111 euros), a small privilege compared to other retirees who, on the whole, live badly.
For a large part of the population, the fighter remains a major and indisputable figure. The march of the "immortal regiment", traditionally highlighted by the Kremlin will take place on Sunday on the internet (like last year) and perhaps in the street on June 24, if sanitary conditions allow it: everyone parades with the portrait of a grandfather who died during the conflict
. "This sacred theme of the Second World War is maintained, there is no serious attempt, even among critics of the government, for a complete overhaul
,
"
said political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov.
How can we talk about the possibility of a war with Ukraine, that is, a war between the guys from Rostov-on-Don and the guys from Odessa, including the big- fathers fought together in the same divisions against Nazism?
Maxime Chevtchenko, journalist
To the question
, "what do you think of Victory Day?"
, 44% of Russians say they feel joy, 22
% "mourn over the millions of war dead"
and 33% say they have both feelings, according to a survey conducted by the Levada institute last year.
On the other hand, the theme of a confrontation with the West on the interpretation of history is omnipresent in official discourse and has grown steadily in recent years. It is the idea, explains Mikhail Vinogradov
, "that certain anonymous enemies try to steal the victory from us"
, a distrust which in fact targets certain countries of Eastern Europe, such as Poland or the Baltic States. Very recently, parliamentarians from both Chambers announced their intention to introduce a new law - which would complete an already well-developed legislative arsenal - to
“fight against the malicious falsification of the history of the Second World War”
. According to its initiators, the bill would aim to
"Prohibiting the identification of the role of the USSR and Nazi Germany"
, a theme sometimes suggested by the ultra-sensitive German-Soviet pact of 1939. Also in the crosshairs, the negation of the
"decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazi Germany and in the liberation of European countries ”
… On March 31, a set of laws was approved, amending the penal code and the administrative code, to suppress the
“ dissemination of deliberately false information on the activities of the USSR during the Second World War ”
.
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According to political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov, a shift has taken place, particularly marked with the Putin years
: "In Soviet times, we celebrated peace, now we commemorate victory, it's not the same thing."
For the journalist Maxime Chevtchenko
, "there are only the tracks of the tanks which collide on the cobblestones of the Kremlin"
.
"
How can we talk about the possibility of a war with Ukraine, that is to say a war between the guys from Rostov-on-Don and the guys from Odessa, including the big guys? -fathers fought together in the same divisions against Nazism?
"Deplores the journalist, wondering about the
" legacy of May 9 ".
As in the worst moments of the Cold War, which quickly took hold after the joint victory of 1945, solidarity between the Allies is no longer in season today.
Tensions between Russia and the West have recently reached a level not seen in decades.
The Covid, a convenient pretext
The degradation is such, note analysts Dmitry Trenin and Andrei Kolesnikov in a note from the Carnegie center in Moscow, that the major planetary challenges are no longer likely to constitute a common cause between East and West
. "From the point of view of the American political current, Russia at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century is a power in decline,"
note Trenin and Kolesnikov. For these experts,
"any attempt to revive a coalition such as the one formed against Hitler, this time in order to unite the efforts of Russia and the West in the fight against international terrorism, pandemics and change. climate appears useless and without a future
”.
Without foreign guests and in a deleterious diplomatic climate - reciprocal expulsions have multiplied in the chanceries - is the Covid a convenient pretext or the true sign of the patriotic withdrawal which should witness this May 9
? "Russia cannot resolve to a status of regional power but it cannot invite anyone else to share the joy of the great victory"
, underlines the political analyst Alexeï Makarkin to summarize the Russian equation.