Russia celebrated Victory Day on the 9th of May 2026, the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Most of the Allies honor Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day, on May 8, the day in 1945 that jubilant celebrations broke out as news spread of the Nazis’ unconditional surrender in Reims, France, on May 7, 1945. The Russians celebrate victory over the Nazis on May 9, for by the time the Germans surrendered to the Soviets in Berlin, the time difference meant it was already May 9 in Moscow.
May 9 is an important national holiday in Russia, marked with parades and honoring of relatives who fought in the war. In 2005, when Russia was still embracing democratic nations, more than fifty world leaders attended the sixtieth anniversary of Victory Day, including President George W. Bush ; the leaders of China, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, and Denmark ; the secretary-general of the United Nations ; and the president of the European Commission.
But for the past several years, Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has used the event to demonstrate the nation’s military strength and to rally supporters behind him and the war in Ukraine. He has showcased troops and military hardware in a grand parade in Moscow’s Red Square.
This year, as Zahra Ullah of CNN reported, Putin followed his usual pattern of equating the troops fighting in Ukraine with those who fought in World War II. As he has often framed the war as a struggle against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), he claimed today’s soldiers for Russia are “standing up to an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc.”
But the similarities between past celebrations and the one of 2026 ended there. This year, the parade was dramatically scaled back. The parade included four parade units, including some from North Korea, and there was no heavy military hardware. Instead, screens spread across Red Square showed pre-recorded videos of drones, air defense forces, and submarines that state media claimed were from the front lines.
Although foreign leaders have attended the event in the past, this year there were few. As Matthew Luxmoore noted in the Wall Street Journal, Russian allies Venezuela and Hungary have recently lost their pro-Russian leaders, and Russian ally Iran is at war with the U.S. China’s leader Xi Jinping attended last year but did not attend this year. Russian officials allowed few foreign reporters to cover the event and warned people there could be restrictions on texting and the internet “to ensure security during the festive events.”
Putin’s scaled-back celebration reflects fear of Ukrainian drone strikes, which are hitting deep inside Russia. It also reflects growing discontent over the war and its devastation of the economy, and anger at the increasing repression with which Putin is trying to control opposition.
As former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul noted in McFaul’s World, Putin’s war on Ukraine has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union’s war with Nazi Germany and has achieved none of the goals Putin set out for the conflict. He has not subjugated Ukraine and has not succeeded in regime change. He has not “demilitarized” Ukraine ; indeed, Ukraine is more militarized than ever before and has become an important player in global weapons systems. And not only has Putin failed to stop NATO from expanding, but in response to his invasion of Ukraine, both Finland and Sweden have joined the defensive alliance.
Instead of achieving Putin’s goals, the war has killed or wounded more than 1.2 million Russian soldiers and eaten up the economy. As criticism of the regime has become more outspoken, the Kremlin has curbed access to the internet, not only exacerbating that criticism but also, as McFaul notes, making it harder for people to use mobile banking, order a taxi, or use other online services. Rumors are circulating that President Putin is increasingly concerned for his own safety. Rather than walking to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to lay flowers as usual, on May 9 of the year 2026 he took an armored bus.
Russia had announced a ceasefire for Friday 08 and Saturday 09 May 2026, but when it unraveled, President Donald J. Trump announced that he had persuaded Russia and Ukraine to agree to a three-day ceasefire that would cover the Victory Day celebration and allow an exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each country. After the announcement of the ceasefire, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky trolled Putin with a formal presidential decree to “allow” a parade in Moscow. It said : “For the time of the parade…the territorial square of Red Square shall be excluded from the plan of application of Ukrainian weapons.”
By Sunday the 10th of May 2026 —after the parade—the ceasefire had already broken down.
On the 11th of May 2026, McFaul noted : “Ukrainian warriors have stopped the invading Russian hordes. Putin is losing his war in Ukraine…. Putin would be wise to cut his losses.”
