Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday May 9, 2026 that his army was confronting forces in Ukraine « agressives » supported by NATO, during a speech on Red Square for modest commemorations of May 9, 1945, the first day of a truce accepted by kyiv. This parade, marked by the absence of military equipment and which lasted only 45 minutes, was reinforced at the last minute by the entry into force of a three-day truce announced the day before by Donald Trump.
Threats of Ukrainian drone attacks to disrupt the ceremonies marking the Soviet victory against Nazi Germany, celebrated on May 9 in Russia, and of Russian strikes in retaliation against the center of Kiev had loomed over the previous days.
“Our cause is just”
“The great feat of the victorious generation (against Adolf Hitler) today inspires the soldiers who lead the special military operation (a Ukraine). They face an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc.”declared Vladimir Putin, from the podium. “I am firmly convinced that our cause is just. We are together. The victory was ours and it will be forever.”he added, before the Russian anthem sounded.
The Russian leader spoke in front of several hundred soldiers standing in Moscow’s main square. Soldiers from the North Korean army, which helped Moscow drive out Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region in the spring of 2025, took part in the commemorations, according to Russian television.
This parade, which began at 10 a.m. local time and ended at 10:45 a.m., took place under high security. Mobile internet does not work in the center of Moscow and the streets of the capital are almost all deserted, journalists from theAFP.
No military hardware for the first time in almost 20 years
These commemorations are an important event allowing Vladimir Putin, in power for 26 years, to mobilize the memory of the Soviet victory and to seek to rally the Russian population behind the military campaign in Ukraine. But this year they appeared threatened by incessant Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory.
Moscow reduced the pomp of the celebrations: for the first time in almost twenty years, there was no military equipment on Red Square, nor cadet corps and military schools. The number of foreign dignitaries has also decreased.
Only the leaders of Belarus, Malaysia and Laos and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico traveled to Moscow, in addition to those of the two separatist Georgian republics supported by Moscow and not recognized by the UN, according to the Kremlin.
