President spoke at a Victory Day ceremony marked by heightened security and limited presence of allied leaders
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated this Saturday (9) that his army faces an “aggressive” force supported by NATO in Ukrainein his speech commemorating Victory Day against the Nazis, celebrated this year in a reduced format and taking advantage of a brief truce with Kiev mediated by the United States.
The event in Moscow’s Red Square lasted just 45 minutes, including the presidential speech, and did not display weapons.
Unlike last year’s pompwhen around twenty international leaders from countries such as China and Brazil attendedthis time only a few allied leaders participated, from nations such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Slovakia.
The celebration benefited at the last moment from the entry into force of a three-day truce between Russia and Ukraine, announced the day before by American President Donald Trump.
Until the last moment, therefore, the event was threatened by possible attacks by Ukrainian drones, which could have disrupted the celebration of the Soviet Union’s triumph against Nazism, celebrated every year in Russia on May 9th.
“The great success of the victorious generation inspires today the soldiers who carry out the special military operation [na Ucrânia]. They face an aggressive force, armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc,” Putin declared in his speech.
“I am firmly convinced that our cause is just. We are together. The victory was ours, and it will be forever”, added the leader.
After more than four years of conflict, Russia controls around 20% of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014.
The celebrations, as seen on Russian television, included soldiers from North Korea, who in 2025 helped Moscow expel Ukrainian troops from the Russian region of Kursk.
Three days of truce
The parade started at 10:00 local time (04:00 Brasília time) and ended at 10:45 am, under strong security measures.
Mobile internet was cut off in the center of Moscow and many streets in the capital were almost empty, AFP journalists found.
The celebrations in Moscow’s Red Square are a key event that allows Putin to exalt the memory of the Soviet triumph in 1945 and unite the Russian population in support of the military campaign in Ukraine.
But this year the acts were threatened by Kiev’s incessant drone attacks and on the streets, Moscow residents don’t seem very hopeful that peace will return anytime soon.
The end of the conflict “will not be soon, no matter how much we all want peace”, Elena, a 36-year-old economist who prefers not to give her last name and is mainly irritated by the internet shutdown, tells AFP. “I need it, and it doesn’t have it.”
May 9th is “a day like any other”, adds Daniil, 26, on his way to the gym. Asked if this brief truce is a prelude to peace, he responds with a dry “no”.
After two attempts at a truce, first Ukrainian and then Russian, which were not respected this week, Trump announced on Friday a three-day ceasefire between the parties starting this Saturday.
“Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly and difficult war,” wrote the American president on his Truth Social platform, specifying that the ceasefire would be accompanied by an “exchange” of 1,000 prisoners from each country.
Trump considered that the end of the war is “increasingly closer”while this week talks between Ukrainian and American negotiators resumed in Florida.
These talks had been on the back burner since the start of the war in the Middle East on February 28. On Friday, the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, said he expected Washington’s envoys to arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks.
