LOS ANGELES.–Russian President Vladimir Putin, 72, celebrated VE [WW II Victory Day Europe] in Moscow’s Red Square with 26 other leaders from various nations including Chinese President Xi Jinping. Putin’s VE Day parade is scoffed at in the West, largely because the allies, led by the United States, like to take credit for defeating Nazi Germany. U.S. entered the war in Europe June 6, 1944, three years after Russia started battling Hitler’s Third Reich in 1941. Where are the Germans today commemorating VE Day when it took a good six years to end Hitler’s rampage through Europe. Everyone knows about Nazi atrocities in the Holocaust but do they know that Russia lost some 28 million soldiers and civilians battling Germany from 1941 to 1945? President Donald Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his VE Day celebration, something Americans share in eventual defeat of Germany.
How ironic that Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz, 69, did not call Putin to thank him for Russia’s sacrifices in WW II. Were it not for Russia in the eastern front, the allies would not have rolled into Berlin May 8, 1945 triumphant, the day Hitler committed suicide in his bunker with his wife, Eva Braun. Western press looks skeptically at Russia’s VE Day celebration, largely because it detracts from the U.S. narrative that they won the war against Hitler. Without Russia’s sacrifices, VE Day may have never taken place. With Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva looking on at the parade in Red Square, Putin wanted to show that 82-year-old former President Joe Biden’s attempt to isolate Moscow didn’t work. Whether the West likes it or not, Putin still has his allies, including Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi.
Putin knows the history of 20th Century well and has every reason to take pride in the horrific sacrifices made by the Soviet Union to stop Germany’s unrelenting march into oblivion. “It’s again showing that Russia is not isolated, that Russia is seen as very legitimate victorious nation that is among the victors in WW II,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. Yet in the West, especially the U.S. anti-Communist hysteria has got in the way of acknowledging Russia’s major contribution in winning the war against Germany. You’d thing that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz would call Putin to let him know he recognizes the important role Russia played to ending Germany’s Nazi regime. “Russia is standing tall among the so-called global majority,” Gabuev said, recognizing that Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico attended Putin’s DE Day celebration.
When it comes to the U.K., France and Germany, they have no understanding of Russia’s reasons for invading Ukraine. Putin drew the parallel in his Red Square speech. “We are proud of their courage and determination, their spiritual force that has always brought us victory,” Putin said, referring to the Ukraine War. If you ask the U.K., France and Germany, they would tell you that Putin is the aggressor in the war because he moved some 200,000 Russian troops into Ukraine Feb. 24, 2022. But no one in the West wants to acknowledge the Feb. 22, 2014 pro-Western Maiden Revolution backed by the CIA that toppled the pro-Kremlin Kiev government of Viktor Yanukovych. Once the coup d’etat happened, Putin moved swiftly March 1, 2024 to annex Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. So the antecedents of the current Ukraine War go back at least eleven years.
So, if any European country looked at Ukraine in broader context, including Russian sacrifices made during WW II, they would understand Putin’s reasons for taking a strong stand in Ukraine. Biden kept arming Ukraine months leading up to the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion, refusing to discuss new security arrangements in Ukraine. Putin saw Biden’s arming of Ukraine as a direct threat to Russian national security, eventually having to draw a red line. Calling the VE Day celebration showing off Russia’s latest military hardware with 11,500 marching troops, the celebration has become “a civic religion that boosts patriotism, nationalism, nostalgia, and justifies both his repressive regime at home and Russia’s increasingly expansionist foreign policy abroad, particularly towards its neighbors,” said Gabuev. Western officials can’t fathom Russian sacrifices in WW II.
European officials understand the pain and sacrifice made during WW II with France losing some 567,000 soldiers and civilians. Britain lost 450,900 about the same as the United States. When compared with 28 million Russians, it’s an unthinkable number, creating Russia’s defensive stand in the world. When Putin realized that Biden funded proxy war against his government, he saw it as a war with NATO and the Western Alliance. Ukraine refused to acknowledge Putin’s VE Day celebration, instead hosting a European tribunal in Lviv to prosecute Putin and Russian officials for war crimes. “Russia needs to feel our common and, most importantly, growing strength,” said 47-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr. That doesn’t sound like someone close to signing on to Trump’s ceasefire and peace deal to end the destructive and costly Ukraine War.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
