Russia under putten has been in search of an identity for russia, and a way to kind of define and justify his brand of authoritarianism. The soviet victory in world war too is really that one shared experience common across basically all russian households. So he really on that. He really tried to build that up into what really some analysts i've spoken to about this call a kind of occult a victory. And over the years, as putten's relationship with the west grows more and more confrontational, may ninth increasingly becomes less about alliances and more about enemies,.
For years, President Vladimir V. Putin has taken advantage of Victory Day — when Russians commemorate the Soviet triumph over Nazi Germany — to champion his country’s military might and project himself as a leader of enormous power.
This year, he drew on the pageantry of May 9 for an even more pressing goal: making the case for the war in Ukraine.
Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.
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