Russia's celebration of victory in World War II, a key pillar of Putin’s rule

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00 Russia today marking the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany

00:05 in World War II. As relations with the West spiral deeper into crisis over the

00:10 advance of Russian troops against Ukraine. We're going to keep on

00:13 following those images coming into us live at the moment from Moscow. This

00:17 parade began around about an hour ago now. It's set to continue for at least

00:21 another hour or so as well. Vladimir Putin who rose to power just eight years

00:26 after the Soviet Union broke up. He's spoken at that ceremony that's going on

00:31 there. He said our forces are always combat ready and Russia will do

00:35 everything to avoid global confrontation. There will be slightly less military

00:41 hardware on display there in parades before Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

00:46 Putin continuing to case the war as part of a holy struggle with the West

00:50 which he says has forgotten the role played by the Soviet Union in defeating

00:55 Nazi Germany. We're going to cross now to talk to our former NOSCO correspondent

00:59 Nick Holdsworth who joins us now. Nick, a big day for Russia and for Vladimir

01:05 Putin. He's already been making that speech there with this parade isn't it?

01:09 Yeah this is always a big day in Russia. The celebrations to mark victory over

01:17 the Nazis in May 1945 have been taking place now every year since 1995. After

01:24 the Second World War there were just occasional parades but Yeltsin brought

01:28 this parade back in '95 and it's been an annual event ever since. This is the one

01:32 unifying myth that the Kremlin still has to hold on to. The great sacrifice, more

01:39 than 20 million dead in the Great Patriotic War as the Russians call it, the Second World War.

01:44 And this event has become even more important as part of the propaganda offensive by Putin

01:50 since he launched the war on Ukraine a couple of years ago. And as you've just

01:56 mentioned there may have been less modern military hardware there on Red

02:00 Square today. I was looking at the live TV pictures from Moscow and it showed

02:07 certainly some very high-level technical equipment, rocket carriers, electronic

02:13 warfare machines, huge trucks, troop carriers etc. Had the traditional war

02:19 time, Second World War time tanks, the T-34 leading that part of parade and

02:25 about 9,000 troops involved including elite paratrooper units and others.

02:30 That's continuing with Putin paying his respects at the Tomb of the Unknown

02:34 Warrior where an eternal flame burns just below Red Square below the Kremlin

02:39 walls. And this is really part of the Kremlin's effort to show the Russian

02:46 people that it's still in the game, that it's still a mighty nation and that it's

02:51 something to be reckoned with for the West. And he did say there are a couple

02:55 of messages here. There's the message to the domestic audience which is we are

02:59 strong and there's the message to the international audiences

03:02 that we're strong enough to fend you off. We don't want war but we're ready for it

03:07 if it comes to that. And he also added, and this is an olive branch both to the

03:13 Western way and to the domestic audience, that Russia's never denigrated the

03:17 contribution of the Allies in the Second World War. So there are mixed messages

03:21 there. On the one hand saying we're standing up for you and on the other hand saying

03:27 we're still ready to talk. Nick you mentioned the Russian people there. How

03:32 important do you think it is for the Russian people to see this going ahead

03:36 amid the ongoing war in Ukraine? Given that Putin's official popularity ratings

03:43 are something around 80 percent, this is very important for the Russian people.

03:47 This is a big family holiday and although it may have been snowing lightly

03:52 on Red Square just 30 or 40 minutes ago, it is a day normally when the sun shines

03:59 and people come out in force and there are parties in the street, there are

04:03 reenactments with military reenactors wearing their old uniforms, that

04:08 sort of thing. And it's something which the Russian people really value around

04:12 because with that sacrifice in the Second World War, every single Russian

04:16 family today has a grandparent, a great-uncle, a great-aunt who served

04:21 during the war or who died during the war. So this is something which is very,

04:26 very central to Russian culture and the continuation of these parades during

04:31 this war against Ukraine is part of the regime's package showing the Russian

04:38 people that it's still firmly in control. Nick, thanks so much. Nick Holtzworther

04:42 our former Moscow correspondent talking to us as we'll continue to, we

04:46 continued to see those images coming out of Red Square. So as I said then, coming

04:51 all of this as Russia seeks to defeat Ukraine of course, we're going to talk a

04:55 lot more about that now with our Chief Foreign Editor Rob Parsons. Rob,

05:00 Russia does seem, doesn't it, more confident now in Ukraine than it was

05:04 certainly a year ago. What are its objectives do you think at this stage?

05:07 I think it is more confident than it was a year ago. It went through a period

05:11 the end of 2022, the beginning of 2023 when things look pretty bad. It's

05:17 stabilized since then and I think the regime, the Kremlin is trying to convey

05:23 the impression that the army is getting on top of things, that the situation for

05:28 Ukraine is getting worse and that within a couple of years, 2026 seems to be the

05:34 the target that the Kremlin is looking for. They will get on top of Ukraine and

05:40 impose its conditions on Ukraine. Those conditions, assuming that the Russian

05:45 army were to win a victory over the Ukrainian armed forces, would include

05:50 keeping all the territory that Russia has gained so far, plus more obviously in

05:56 the intervening years. They would also include the cities of Kharkiv, the second

06:02 largest city in Ukraine, and Odessa, the largest port on the Black Sea coast.

06:08 They would forbid Ukraine from ever joining NATO and allow Russia to

06:15 effectively appoint whoever will become head of state in Ukraine.

06:20 That's the sort of relationship with Ukraine that Russia is looking forward

06:23 to in the future and it hopes to achieve that by using the tactics we're seeing

06:28 at the moment. A tactic essentially of attrition along that very long

06:32 1,000-kilometre front, grinding away at the Ukrainian armed forces, exhausting

06:39 them both in terms of manpower and in terms of equipment and ammunition, and at

06:44 the same time undermining the confidence of Ukrainian allies in their

06:49 ability to carry on supplying Ukraine. That, however, is not going as well as the

06:57 Russians, I think, had thought it was going to go with the decision by Congress to

07:01 give aid of 61 billion dollars to the military effort in Ukraine and the

07:06 efforts too of the European Union. So although Russia is trying to convey

07:10 this impression of confidence, it may be a rather brittle sort of confidence.

07:16 What about the state, would you say then, Rob, of the state of the Russian

07:19 armed forces? I mean, it's one of the biggest armies in the world, let's not

07:22 forget that of course, but has its performance got better or worse since

07:25 the start of the war? I think it's got better. I think there's very much doubt about that.

07:29 At the beginning of the war it was big, they managed to put about

07:35 370,000 troops into Ukraine, but it was not very well coordinated, not very

07:41 well led. Now the organisation of the armed forces is much better, they seem to

07:47 have clearly stated, established goals about what they want to achieve. Those

07:52 private armies that appeared for a while seem to have disappeared. The goals are

07:58 clear, but the problem I think is that although the armed forces now are bigger,

08:03 they have over half a million men in Ukraine now, many of those

08:07 people, many of those soldiers are very inexperienced because they're being put

08:13 through sort of meat grinder tactics in Ukraine. The casualties they're

08:16 suffering are colossal. The soldiers who are dying are being replaced by soldiers

08:21 who have little experience. That said, the war economy has been building up

08:26 quite fast in Russia. According to some reports, as much as 30% of spending last

08:33 year went on defence. They're able to, so they say, produce 1,500 tanks a year,

08:42 30,000 armoured vehicles, they can produce 1.3 million 152mm shells a year.

08:49 It all sounds very impressive, but if you look more closely at it, there are

08:55 pitfalls there as well. If you look, for instance, at the tanks, 80% of those

09:00 tanks are being produced are refurbished old tanks, some of them dating back to

09:04 the 1950s. 1.3 million shells of that calibre sounds like quite a lot until you

09:11 start comparing it with the sort of numbers they need to achieve the sort

09:16 of aims they've set themselves of defeating Ukraine by 2022. They would need

09:20 probably somewhere in the region of 4 million a year. They can get some of

09:23 those from imports from North Korea, from Syria, from Iran and so on, but not

09:27 enough and they're having to fall back on their stocks and the stocks are

09:30 running out. I'm going to ask you finally, Rob, that question that I know people

09:33 like you hate being asked, because it's a bit of a crystal ball question, isn't it?

09:37 But given everything you've said, what do you think we might see on the

09:41 battlefield in Ukraine over the next few months and over the next year? I think

09:44 the likelihood is more of the same. It's going to be grinding and, you know, a lot

09:49 has been made of the fact that Russia over the last six months or so has

09:53 inched its way forward. It's true. Russia has taken somewhere in the region of

09:58 400 square kilometres of territory. That's about, for those who know it, the

10:03 size of the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. It's a relatively small island.

10:07 It's not a lot of territory and this is a period in which Russia has had quite

10:12 marked advantages in terms of manpower and artillery. That is being balanced out

10:18 now as more equipment starts to come into Ukraine. It's taking a little while

10:22 to get there but it's beginning to come in. By the summer it's expected that

10:26 there'll be more of balance and since if you're an attacking force you need a

10:30 preponderance of about three to one by most military estimates. Russia is a long

10:34 way off that. The Ukrainians give the impression that if it comes to a war of

10:38 attrition, Russia cannot really advance very much further. The question is in

10:43 their minds, can they acquire over the next two years

10:47 sufficient technological advantage over the Russians to push them back? We shall

10:52 see. Rob, thanks very much. Rob Parsons, our Chief Foreign Editor here on France 24.

Category

Transcript

Recommended