Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking from Moscow’s Red Square at the start of a military pageant, did not use a Victory Day speech to announce plans to intensify the war against Ukraine or order a mobilization of men to fight as Ukrainian officials had feared.
Instead, he defended his country’s military action in Ukraine as “necessary, timely and the only right solution.” He told the 11,000 assembled service personnel gathered to mark Victory Day, a commemoration of the Soviet Union’s World War II role in defeating Nazi Germany, that Russian forces entered Ukraine as “preemptive pushback” to what he claimed, without evidence, were Western plans to carry out attacks on eastern Ukraine. The United States and Western allies, while backing Ukraine and funneling in weapons and aid, have not entered the fight directly.
Cities across Russia are joining the pageantry, with Vladivostok and Novosibirsk in the country’s far east among the first to hold parades of service personnel….
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