Russian President, Vladimir Putin, on May 9, 2023, spoke at the military parade in Moscow on Red Square to commemorate the 78^th anniversary of the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany on that day in 1945. Using the May 9 celebration as a springboard, Putin in his 10-minute speech brought to the fore the “Special Military Operation (SMO)” that Russia is waging against Ukraine. By repeatedly congratulating the “participants” in the SMO – from actual military personnel to parents and relatives – within the context of the danger to the world that was averted thanks to Russia’s defeat of Nazism, Putin intimated that the war against Ukraine was on the same level of importance.

Rather than recognizing the obvious contradiction inherent in the two conflicts, i.e., that Germany was the aggressor in WWII, whereas Russia is the aggressor, having invaded Ukraine, Putin has drawn on his warped sense of reality, which is fueled by hatred (and, I would suggest, jealousy) of the West, and has conveniently argued that the latter is the aggressor, having invaded Russia’s sovereign territory and geopolitical space. Putin’s biasedly skewed version of international relations permits him to view Ukraine as a client state of Russia, while the West is using Ukraine to wage a proxy war with Russia. Thus, in his mind, he is justified in fighting to realign relations in a way that thwarts the West’s intrigues and brings Ukraine back into the fold of a Greater Russia, and by doing both will achieve Russia’s security.

[The full text of Putin’s speech, his 20^th, presented on the Russian internet news site NGS.RU https://ngs.ru/text/world/2023/05/09/72288926/; translated by LOC]

Dear Veterans!

Comrade soldiers and sailors, sergeants and sergeants-major, warrant officers and ensigns!

Comrade officers, generals and admirals!

Fighters and commanders – participants in the special military operation!

I congratulate you on Victory Day!

Happy holiday – in honor of our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, who brought glory to and immortalized their names, defending the Fatherland. At the cost of immeasurable courage and great sacrifices they saved humanity from Nazism.

Today, civilization once again finds itself at a decisive, critical turning point.  A real war has once again been unleashed against our Motherland, but we repulsed international terrorism, we will also defend the residents of the Donbass, and we will provide for our security.

For us, for Russia, there are no unfriendly, enemy peoples in the West or in the East. And, like the absolute majority of people on the planet, we want to see the future as peaceful, free, and stable. [Translator comment: This statement is very reminiscent of the Communist slogan, “Workers of the world, unite!” The key word is ‘peoples,’ by which Putin means the ordinary individuals making up a nation. Although the word can mean both ‘people’ or ‘nation,’ context demands the former.]

[Translator comment: I am by no means suggesting that Putin is a communist – far from it – but he is using language readily understood by the older generation – many of whom long for the days of the Soviet Union – and thus conjuring up for them idealistic reminiscences.]

We consider that any ideology of superiority, by its very nature, is repulsive, criminal, and deadly. However, Western globalist elites, as before, are hardening their exceptionalism, poisoning people, and splitting societies, provoking bloody conflicts and revolutions, sowing hatred, Russophobia, aggressive nationalism as well as destroying family and traditional values that make a person a person. And all for the purpose of further dictating and imposing their will on peoples, their laws and rules, but in essence, a system of pillage, violence, and suppression.

It seems they have forgotten, what the insane claims of the Nazis to domination led to. They have forgotten, who crushed this monstrous, total evil, who stood as a wall for native land and did not spare their lives for the sake of liberating the peoples of Europe.

We are seeing how in a string of countries they are pitilessly and calmly destroying memorials to Soviet warriors, tearing down monuments to great commanders, creating a present-day cult of Nazis and their accomplices, while the memory of real heroes they are trying to erase and slander. Such insulting, crass mockery at the feats and sacrifices of that victorious generation – this also is a crime, open revanchism of those who cynically and barefaced have prepared a new crusade [Translation note: the word I have translated as ‘crusade’ can also mean ‘campaign,’ however, I believe that Putin is using it in the context of the infidel West waging an unholy crusade on Orthodox Russia, as he plays the victim] on Russia, who has brought together for this the neo-Nazi scum of the whole world.

Their goal – and here there is nothing new – is to achieve the collapse and destruction of our country, to cross out the results of the Second World War, finally break the system of global security and international law, and to strangle any sovereign centers of development.

Exorbitant ambitions, arrogance, and permissiveness inevitably turn into tragedies. This is exactly the reason for the catastrophe, which the Ukrainian people are living through right now. They have become the hostage of a state coup and of the criminal regime, at its base, of its Western masters, a bargaining chip in realizing their cruel, mercenary plans.

For us in Russia, the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland is holy, we guard it in our hearts. We pay tribute to the participants of the resistance, who courageously fought against Nazism, to the fighters of the allied armies of the U.S., of Great Britain, and of other states. We remember and honor the feats of the warriors of China in the battle against Japanese militarism. [Translator comment: Putin offers a sop to China in order to further encourage China’s cozying up to Russia while identifying Japan as part of the cohort of Western democracies, particularly as a member of the G7.]

I am convinced: the experience of solidarity and partnership in the years of struggle against a common threat – this is our invaluable heritage. A firm support exactly now, when an irreversible movement is gaining momentum toward a more just, multipolar world that is founded on the principles of trust and indivisible security, and of equal opportunities for the independent and free development of all countries and peoples.

It is very important that today, here, in Moscow, leaders of countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States have gathered. I see in this a grateful relationship to the feat of our forefathers: they fought together and together were victorious – all peoples of the USSR contributed to the common Victory.

We will always remember this. We bow our heads before the bright memory of all, whose lives the war took, before the memory of sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, relatives, and friends.

A moment of silence is declared. [Translator note: Approximately a minute of silence is counted down by a drummer striking the edge of his drum with his drumstick.]

The battles, deciding the fates of our Motherland always became those fought in the Fatherland by the people, and thus holy.  We are faithful to the behests of [our] forefathers and deeply and clearly understand what it means to be worthy of the height of their military, labor, and moral accomplishments.

We are proud of the participants in the special military operation, of all, who are fighting at the front, who are provisioning the front under fire, and saving the wounded. There is nothing more important now than our military work. Today, the country’s security is on you and on you depends the future of our nationhood and our people. You are executing your military duty with honor and are fighting for Russia. Your families, children and friends are behind you. They are waiting for you. I am sure, you feel their boundless love.

The whole country has rallied in order to support our heroes. All are prepared to help and are praying for you.

Comrades! Friends! Dear veterans!

Today in our every family they are honoring participants of the Great Fatherland War, are remembering their relatives, their heroes and laying flowers at military memorials.

You and I are standing on Red Square, on the ground, which remembers the armed forces of Yuri Dolgoruky [Tn: Grand Prince of Kyiv (Kievan Rus) and the founder of Moscow] and Dmitry Donskoi [Tn: united Russian lands with the center in Moscow], the militias of Minin and Pozharsky [Tn: according to the Russian educational site ‘obrazavaka’ – freed Moscow in 1612 from the Poles], the warriors of Peter the Great and Kutuzov [Tn: Kutuzov defeated Napoleon in the “Fatherland War of 1812”], and the parades of 1941 [on November 7 to commemorate the 24^th anniversary of the October Revolution] and 1945 [to celebrate Germany’s defeat in WWII]. [Translator comment: Putin employs a double innuendo, on the one hand, by associating historic Russian military heroes with Kievan Rus, while on the other, drawing a parallel between their valor and that of the “participants” in the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

There are here, today, participants in the special military operation – these are the cadres of military personnel and those, who have replenished the ranks of the armed services during partial mobilization; these are the combatants of the Lugansk and Donetsk corps and the many volunteer combat formations; and, the employees of the National Guard, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and other special services and departments.

I greet you, friends! I greet all who are fighting for Russia on the battlefield and who now are at a fighting post.

In the years of the Great Fatherland War, our heroic forefathers proved that there is nothing stronger, more powerful and reliable than our oneness. There is nothing in the world stronger than our love for the Motherland.

For Russia! For our valiant Armed Services! For Victory!

Urah!