Irish Examiner view: Cult of victory all that's left to Putin

Many Russians remembering their country's great Second World War victory did so in ignorance of what Putin is perpetrating in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow to mark the 77th anniversary of the end of the Second World War II. Picture: Anton Novoderezhkin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/AP

It seems that for Russian President Vladimir Putin the cult of victory is all that is left to him and his cabal of supporters.

Yesterday’s strangely hollow Victory Day celebrations in Moscow — all military parades, marching bands, and flag-waving, but no airforce fly-over — saw the man who has orchestrated Europe’s biggest tragedy since 1945 celebrate Russia’s victory over Nazism and autocracy in that same year. Sadly, many of those remembering Russia’s great Second World War victory did so in ignorance of what Putin and those stony-faced generals surrounding him in Red Square are perpetrating in Ukraine in the name of fallen heroes. They were left to believe the administration’s claims that Ukraine is the home of “executioners, punishers, and Nazis” and its citizens were nothing other than “Nazi filth”.