May 9th will be an important day for Putin - "Will experience very bad scenes"

Created: 08/04/2022, 21:01

By: Cindy Boden

President of Russia Vladimir Putin at the Victory Day military parade in Red Square on May 9, 2021. © Alexei Nikolsky/ITAR-TASS/Imago

Not only France's president expects that Putin wants to present his people with successes in the war on May 9th.

Bad days could lie ahead for Ukraine.

Moscow - May 9 is supposed to be a very special day in Russia - despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Because then Russia's "holiest holiday" is celebrated - the day of the victory of the Soviet Union on May 9th over Hitler's Germany in World War II.

The day should go “as usual” across the stage.

"We will celebrate it as we always celebrate it," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Preparations are already underway for the traditional military parade on Red Square, in which thousands of soldiers march and the nuclear power shows tanks, missiles and warplanes.

But even that doesn't make international people forget that Russia has been at war in Ukraine for weeks.

And the West keeps emphasizing that things are probably not going as planned for Russia.

Even if the Kremlin often rejects such reports - recently even Kremlin spokesman Peskov had to admit "significant losses".

According to dpa, the fact that Peskow expressed himself in English in an interview with the British TV channel Sky News also caused astonishment in political circles in Moscow.

But the propaganda machine in Russia continues.

May 9th is a day of success for Russia - Russia's President Vladimir Putin probably also wants to present current war successes on this day.

May 9th in Russia: On Victory Day, Putin will want to present successes

In any case, according to French President Emmanuel Macron, Putin wants to concentrate the Russian attacks in Ukraine on the east of the country in order to be able to present a “victory” in Ukraine at the traditional celebration.

"For Russia, May 9 is an important day for the military, and it is relatively clear that it must be a victory day for President Putin," Macron told RTL on Friday (April 8).

"We will see very bad scenes in the next few weeks," Macron predicted.

Russia had already announced that it wanted to focus more on the east of the country - a major Russian offensive is approaching.

In a rocket attack on the train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk

several people were killed on Friday (April 8).

Ukraine and Russia blame each other.

But Western politicians and analysts are certain: it was a Russian attack.

Russia in the Ukraine war before an important date - contradictory announcements from Moscow

The attack also highlights the situation in Donbass.

The march is not over yet.

Western analysts believe Russia is assembling 10 to 13 additional tactical battalions from units withdrawn from Kyiv.

Russia is under pressure to strike quickly because Putin needs success before the traditional victory parade on May 9, according to dpa, also in military circles.

On the other hand, the troops are deeply demoralized by the previous setbacks.

But Peskov also said that maybe it could be over in a few days or in a very short time, or negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv would end the fighting.

The signals from Moscow are contradictory in this regard - a clear strategy can hardly be identified.

In any case, as a foretaste of the military parade on May 9, Russian state television shows again and again how modern Russian missiles from warships and airplanes are attacking targets in Ukraine.