On Monday, even as the conflict in Ukraine worsened, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that, "as in 1945", victory would be theirs. He was referencing the 77th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II. The statement was also an insight into the mind of Putin, who has portrayed the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany as an intensely personal and an even civilisational experience. Moscow is preparing to celebrate the occasion with a Victory Day military parade on Monday, and there are reports that Putin might even declare victory in Ukraine on the day.
However, Putin's statements comes amid reports that a Russian bomb flattened a school being used as a shelter, with more than 60 civilians feared dead. Numerous similar war atrocities—including rape and mass genocides—have been reported.
"Today, our soldiers, as their ancestors, are fighting side by side to liberate their native land from the Nazi filth with the confidence that, as in 1945, victory will be ours. Today, it is our common duty to prevent the rebirth of Nazism which caused so much suffering to the peoples of different countries," Putin said. "Sadly, today, Nazism is rearing its head once more. Our sacred duty is to hold back the ideological successors of those who were defeated," he said.
On the eastern front of the Second World War, Hitler's Operation Barbarossa in 1941 (to invade Soviet Union) had miserably failed, courtesy a Soviet counter-offensive, the onset of harsh winter and the sheer vastness of the Soviet landscape.
Putin, on his WWII experience
He had opened up about it in an article in the US-based National Interest magazine in June 2020.
Putin had spoken about the Siege of Leningrad, where his two-year-old brother Vitya died. "It was the place where my mother miraculously managed to survive. My father, despite being exempt from active duty, volunteered to defend his hometown. He made the same decision as millions of Soviet citizens. He fought at the Nevsky Pyatachok bridgehead and was severely wounded."
"Almost 27 million Soviet citizens lost their lives on the fronts, in German prisons, starved to death and were bombed, died in ghettos and furnaces of the Nazi death camps. The USSR lost one in seven of its citizens, the UK lost one in 127, and the USA lost one in 320. Unfortunately, this figure of the Soviet Union's hardest and grievous losses is not exhaustive," he wrote.
He said he was confident that one of the characteristic features of the people of Russia was to fulfill their duty without feeling sorry for themselves when the circumstances demanded, and values as selflessness, patriotism, love for their home, their family and motherland remain fundamental and integral to this day.
He said the role of the USSR was being obfuscated by the Western powers. "Meanness can be deliberate, hypocritical and pretty much intentional as in the situation when declarations commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War mention all participants in the anti-Hitler coalition except for the Soviet Union."
He laid out how the Soviets defeating the Nazis as a feat of incredible courage, effort and dedication. He said the USSR was facing the strongest, most mobilised and skilled army in the world with the industrial, economic and military potential of almost all Europe. "The most serious military defeats in 1941 brought the country to the brink of catastrophe. Combat power and control had to be restored by extreme means, nation-wide mobilisation and intensification of all efforts of the state and the people. In summer 1941, millions of citizens, hundreds of factories and industries began to be evacuated under enemy fire to the east of the country. Within six months, the Soviet people did something that seemed impossible," he said.