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Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a military parade on Victory Day in Moscow.
Putin's "Victory Day" speech
Global elites and neonazis are waging a very unfair war against us. Check. The West seeks to destroy us and our values. Check. Shout out to China for fighting against Japanese imperialism. Huh? Interesting – check.
Vladimir Putin’s speech a few hours ago at Russia’s annual World War II victory celebration was about what you’d expect: Putin, now 14 months into a four-day war against Ukraine, is girding his people for a long-term conflict against the “West,” and hoping China will help.
But the event, Russia’s most elaborate public holiday, was held this year under an unprecedented nationwide clampdown, with dozens of cities canceling parades because of “security concerns.” Even jet skis were banned on St. Petersburg’s canals! All of this just days after Russia claimed it was attacked by two Ukrainian drones it shot down over the Kremlin.
Scaling back Victory Day celebrations is a big deal. Soviet sacrifice and its triumph in WWII are (justifiably) a few of the remaining points of broad national pride for most Russians today. “There’s not much else,” Russia’s leading independent pollster once told us.
So will Tuesday's clampdown raise questions about how the war effort in Ukraine is actually going? Or will it stoke more nationalist anger about the threat that Ukraine/global elites/neonazis supposedly pose?
Podcast: The Ukraine war is destroying Putin’s reputation
Listen: Michael McFaul knows a thing or two about Russia and Putin from his days as the former US ambassador in Moscow. As Putin's Victory Day speech illustrated, Russia hasn't moved on much since 1945, McFaul tells Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast. But if the West goes too far, there's a much bigger risk: World War III. McFaul says that Putin signaled in his nothing-burger speech that Russia is ready to gobble up another chunk of Ukraine in the Donbas region, and explains why that gives Ukraine a stronger hand at the negotiating table.
McFaul also explains why the US needs to change up its sanctions game and debunks the overwhelming support for the war claimed by the Kremlin. He says he talks to Russians almost every day, and what he's hearing is that there are no winners inside Russia, where the war has hurt Putin politically. Even the oligarchs are unhappy: "There is not a single economic actor in Russia [who] thinks this is good."
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