Amid much pomp, military machinery, and the threat of Ukrainian drone strikes, Russian President Vladimir Putin has delivered his annual speech to mark his country's Victory Day parade.
The Kremlin's celebrations, which mark the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II, are one of the country's biggest public events of the year.
The annual event is also a key part of Putin's propaganda efforts to justify aggression against what the Kremlin falsely portrays as "Nazis" in Ukraine.
"Putin needs this victory cult that he has created," Andrej Lushnycky, author, historian, and president of the Ukrainian Society of Switzerland, told the Kyiv Independent.
"He needs this in order for his own people to accept the terrible conditions that they're still living under in this authoritarian state."
The Kyiv Independent spoke to Lushnycky to get his thoughts on what Putin said during his Victory Day speech — and what he conveniently forgot to mention.
1) 'Russian soldiers'
"Our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers saved the Fatherland… Our duty is to defend the honor of the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, the great feat of representatives of different nationalities, who will forever remain in world history as Russian soldiers."
Putin's attempt to conflate Russian and Soviet soldiers, and his brief nod to "different nationalities," belies one major historical fact — at least six million Ukrainians fought in the Soviet army.
"The truth is that hundreds of thousands of their own troops were killed by the Soviets because they defected, or they didn't have uniforms, they were turning back, or they were just shot in the back of the head."
Though exact numbers are unknown, it's estimated that around 1.65 million of the Ukrainians who fought were killed, the highest number from any of the Soviet republics after Russia itself.
Then there is the stark difference between Putin's veneration of Soviet soldiers and the treatment they faced during the war.
"The truth is that hundreds of thousands of their own troops were killed by the Soviets because they defected, or they didn't have uniforms, they were turning back, or they were just shot in the back of the head," Lushnycky said.
"Human life really doesn't have any value in Russia today, nor can you really say it had value during the Soviet times. Look at the history — whether it was Chornobyl, whether it was the Holodomor, whether it was the way the soldiers were treated that fought in the Second World War."
"Nazis' plan" involved the Soviet Union collaborating with the Nazis in order to carve up Europe between them.
2) The Nazi's plan
"The Nazis' plans to seize the Soviet Union were shattered by the country's truly iron unity."
Soviet and Russian histories like to start the history of World War II in 1941 when the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany.
There's a good reason they gloss over the preceding years — quite a significant part of the "Nazis' plan" involved the Soviet Union collaborating with the Nazis in order to carve up Europe between them.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed days before World War II in 1939, paved the way for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to invade Poland 17 days apart.
The Soviet Union also fought a brutal war against Finland and occupied Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as parts of Poland and Romania in 1939-1940.
"Western armies were armies of liberation, whereas the Soviet army was just an army of occupation," Lushnycky said.
3) Nazism
"Russia has been and will be an indestructible barrier to Nazism."
The Nazis went down in history for launching the most destructive and devastating war of genocidal aggression of all time.
Russia is currently waging the most destructive and devastating genocidal war of aggression in Europe since the Nazis.
According to Lushnycky, this perverse twisting of what it means to be a Nazi is a necessary tool for Putin in order to distract the Russian people from the reality in their own country.
"It's just conjuring up these old images that the regime in Moscow needs in order to bring people together, and to have them overlook the hardships that they're enduring because of his foolhardy stewardship," Lushnycky said.
4) The role of allies
"Today, we are all united by feelings of joy and sorrow, pride and gratitude, and admiration for the generation that crushed Nazism and, at the cost of millions of lives, won freedom and peace for all of humanity."
While Putin did give a nod to the "contribution" of the "allied armies" in the defeat of Nazi Germany, his Victory Day speeches always play up the role of the Soviet Army while downplaying the size of those "contributions" from the allies.
The biggest elephant in the room is the U.S. lend-lease program, which, from 1941-45, saw Washington ship the Soviets the modern-day equivalent of $180 billion worth of arms, equipment, and food.
"Without the lend-lease of the United States — and both (Soviet leaders Josef) Stalin and later (Nikita) Khrushchev even agreed to this — that without this material assistance, the Soviets would have lost the war," Lushnycky said
5) 'Distortion of events'
"We remember the lessons of the Second World War and will never agree with the distortion of its events, with attempts to justify the executioners and slander the true victors."
See points 1-4.
Kateryna Hodunova
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