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As tanks rumbled through Moscow’s Red Square during the Victory Day parade last May, Russian President Vladimir Putin proudly took in the patriotic spectacle as he was flanked by more than two dozen world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping.
This year, most of the political VIPs will be absent. So will all the army vehicles and many students from Russian military colleges.
The parade of marching soldiers Saturday has been stripped down and scaled back, while some Victory Day events near Russia’s borders have been cancelled altogether.
During his time as president, Putin has transformed Victory Day, the May 9 celebration where Russia marks the defeat of Nazi Germany, into a military spectacle. The parade became a chance for the Kremlin to project an extravagant display of pride and power and has functioned as a centrepiece for the public to rally around.
But this year, amid an onslaught of Ukrainian drone attacks in regions across the country, Victory Day has been downgraded, and with it, Putin’s image has arguably been diminished.
“It visualizes the fact that something is going wrong,” said Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter based in Israel who spoke to CBC News by phone.
“We all know how holy this day is…. If [Putin] cannot protect the capital during the parade, during this holy day, something has collapsed.”
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, said that “all measures are being taken to minimize the danger” and blamed Kyiv for “terrorist activity” against Russia.
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had agreed to his request for a three-day ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners, adding that such a halt to hostilities could be the “beginning of the end” of the long war between them.
The ceasefire is to run Saturday through Monday and would mark the anniversary of the end of the Second World War for the Russians, Trump said.
Victory Day comes amid a confluence of challenges for the Russian state, and for Putin, whose popularity has dropped, according to polls.
In recent weeks, Russian energy facilities have been targeted repeatedly by Ukrainian drones and the country’s economy is sagging under weak growth. Growing internet restrictions are hobbling businesses and stoking public frustration.
After more than four years of its war on Ukraine and hundreds of thousands of casualties, the Kremlin isn’t anywhere close to wrapping up its “special military operation” with a big victory or a favourable political settlement.
The fear of drones
On the streets of Moscow, drone defence units armed with automatic weapons and special detection systems have been deployed.
On Monday, a luxury high-rise building in the capital was hit by a drone, and overnight between Thursday and Friday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it intercepted 264 Ukrainian drones that were targeting several regions across the country.
By Friday morning, Ukraine’s Security Service claimed it had struck the Lukoil refinery in Perm, Russia, for the second day in a row.
Earlier, the Kremlin had tried to deter attacks on Victory Day by unilaterally declaring a two-day ceasefire.
Zelenskyy dismissed that suggestion as “strange and inappropriate,” given that Moscow started the war by launching its invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, and has refused to agree to a 30-day ceasefire plan proposed by the U.S.
Exchanging prisoners of war
On Friday, Zelenskyy confirmed the three-day ceasefire had been arranged with Russia as part of U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the war. Writing on Telegram, Zelenskyy also said each of the two sides would be exchanging 1,000 prisoners of war.
Russia also agreed to the three-day ceasefire and prisoner exchange, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Friday.
Zelenskyy also issued a decree on Friday “allowing” the Victory Day parade to proceed and ensuring no weapons are aimed at Red Square.
In a bid to try to reduce the ability of Ukrainian drones targeting Saturday’s parade, Russian officials had announced earlier that mobile internet, along with SMS messaging, would be “restricted” in the capital on Saturday, following outages earlier this week.
Despite complaints from businesses about how the outages were affecting their sales, a Kremlin spokesperson said there would be no compensation as “people’s safety is the priority.”
The internet restrictions apply to websites on the Russian government’s “white list,” a group of state-approved online services that are kept available during the increasingly common connectivity blackouts. Home internet and Wi-Fi will be unaffected, authorities said.
“A military parade is intended as a demonstration of strength and bravery, but if it is held furtively … and with the internet jammed [to reduce the chances of a Ukrainian attack drone being able to navigate to the site], it demonstrates nothing but fear and weakness,” Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, a Berlin-based think-tank, wrote in an analysis this week.
Sudden mobile internet outages
The recent internet outages come after weeks of sudden mobile internet outages in the capital and coincide with the government’s plan to increase its restrictions on the country’s digital space by going after VPNs, or virtual private networks, which Russians often use to access blocked sites.
Gallyamov, who was declared a foreign agent after leaving Russia and added to the government’s wanted list in 2023 for comments he made about the Ukraine war, said he is regularly in contact with Russians on social media who say disappointment is growing.
“The mood is very gloomy,” he said. “There is acrimony and negative feelings, not only towards Putin in general, but towards Putin personally.”
Gallyamov said Putin, whose public appearances have never been spontaneous and always highly choreographed, has pulled back even further from public life and is rarely addressing the country despite the brooding discontent.
He believes fear is likely part of the reason. The Kremlin has not been successful at getting the U.S. administration completely on its side over the war in Ukraine, and will have watched how Washington has handled some of Moscow’s one-time allies.
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was swiftly arrested by U.S. special forces at the beginning of this year, while Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Ali Khamenei was killed in a U.S.-Israel airstrike in February.
Reports of more security around Putin
CNN and the Financial Times recently reported on a leaked document from a European intelligence agency that concluded that security had been bolstered around Putin after a wave of assassinations of top Russian military officials. CBC News has not obtained a copy of the intelligence report.
But Gallyamov said Putin’s lack of communication with the public may be driven by the fact that he doesn’t know what to say to quell some of the criticism that is popping up in public and online.
“Previously, it was clear to everyone that Putin is almost never wrong … he knows how to mobilize resources, how to use all the resources that are available to achieve victory, so let him decide,” said Gallyamov.
“Now people feel that [Putin] can be mistaken and he can lose, so why should we let him decide?”
Last month, Victoria Bonya, a Russian celebrity blogger and former reality TV star who lives in Monaco, posted a video on Instagram appealing to Putin to fix the problems in Russian society.
“The people are afraid of you,” she said to Putin in the video. “There is a big wall between the people and you.”
The video had been viewed tens of millions of times and was talked about on Russia’s daily state news shows.
Other videos on social media have received less attention, but include critiques of the government for how it’s managing the economy and tightening the authorities’ grip on the internet.
In an exclusive interview, the Washington Post spoke with a Kremlin lawyer turned propagandist who launched a blistering attack on Putin, calling him a criminal who should resign.
“Definitely, the amount of inner conflicts is increasing,” said Gallyamov.
“[Putin] still wants to get the Donbas, he still wants to wage war and he still feels the West is the enemy, but all of these things have stopped mobilizing people.”
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