For the first time in almost two decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual Victory Day parade celebrating the Soviet Union’s defeat of Germany in World War II had no tanks or ballistic missiles in Moscow’s Red Square May 9. And only a handful of foreign dignitaries attended the subdued ceremony, most from Moscow’s few close allies.
Cracks are showing in Putin’s regime as it becomes clearer that he isn’t anywhere near victory in Ukraine, in a war already longer than the Second World War slaughter.
Putin has used the national holiday to try to build support for his war. But he has no recent victories in Ukraine to celebrate, in fact Moscow has lost ground.
Russian casualties are growing as Ukrainian forces have built an edge in drone warfare. In response, the Kremlin is stepping up its aerial barrage against civilians in Ukraine’s cities in hopes of demoralizing the population. But Ukrainian working people are determined to defend their country’s sovereignty.
In April Moscow lost over 35,000 troops killed or maimed, the highest toll in five months in a row where their casualties exceeded their ability to recruit replacement forces.
Russian soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces report that Moscow is sending disabled soldiers back to the front lines. The May 11 Wall Street Journal carried an interview with Vhacheslav Kudryashev, a Russian soldier captured by Ukraine. He described how he had been badly wounded in 2023, his skull cracked and part of his right forearm damaged.
But last year he was back to the battlefield, in a head-on infantry assault on Ukrainian positions. This type of assault favored by Moscow today, the Journal said, “is yielding meager gains and heavy losses for Russian troops.”
Kudryashev said he and his one comrade lost their radio, and with no idea of where they were and no contact with their unit, they stayed put. “The Ukrainians could have killed us right there,” he said, but took them captive instead.
The Kremlin is now trying to mount colossal pressure on Russian university students to join up.
Moscow is also pushing to con young men from abroad with false offers of high-paid work and Russian passports to try to entice them to sign up. From former Soviet Republics in Central Asia and across the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, thousands have been lured to Russia, then coerced into the army and off to Ukraine.
The Kremlin’s high command treats these immigrants like it treats native-born soldiers, as cannon fodder. Kyiv has captured prisoners of war from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Yemen, the Republic of Togo, Morocco, Egypt, Brazil and China.
Cracks widen in Putin’s regime
Ukraine’s military has developed drones capable of reaching deeper into Russian territory, hitting key oil refineries and storage facilities, as well as arms manufacturing and military sites.
Since mid-April Ukrainian missiles have hit four times one of Russia’s key oil export hubs, the Tuapse oil terminal on the Black Sea coast. Fires near the Russian resort town filled the skies with heavy black smoke and oily rain, sparking angry recriminations from residents against the central authorities.
With the invasion of Ukraine stalemated, Russia’s war economy shrank this year as the regime has burnt through its financial reserves. Labor shortages have grown while inflation spirals. After years of relying on military spending to boost economic growth, industrial production and construction declined in January and February.
The popularity of the Putin regime is falling. Those speaking out against the government and the effects of its war economy include people formerly connected to the regime.
“The scale of dissatisfaction is colossal,” Ilya Remeslo, a former Kremlin lawyer who has turned on Putin, told the May 6 Washington Post. Remeslo was involved in Putin’s prosecution of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny. He says he decided to speak out now because “it would lead other people to speak too.”
“A very big battle for power is going on” in the deepest crisis in the Kremlin since the 1990s, Remeslo said. As Putin retreats to his bunkers, his political police are tightening repression and censorship, fearing protests may rock his regime.
Remeslo was briefly confined to a St. Petersburg, Russia, psychiatric ward after criticizing Putin in March. Freed, he spoke out again, saying, Putin “is doing everything to lead the country into an abyss.”