On May 9, Russia celebrates its own Victory Day, which marks the end of World War II in Europe. This date has its reason for being: after the formal surrender of Nazi Germany -first in Reims on May 7, 1945 and the next day in Karlshortst -the Soviet forces continued their fight against the German troops in Prague and its surroundings, where the shootings ceased at the end of the afternoon of May 9. In addition, since when the Act of surrender was signed near Berlin on May 8, it was already the early hours of May 9 in Moscow, the Soviets decided to establish victory day on that last date. I would say that this change, although for the most part it was accidental, It symbolizes a significant difference between the impact and consequences of World War II for the Soviet Union and the rest of the world.
There is no doubt that the USSR suffered incredible losses during the war: Around 42 million people perished, and the devastation of the occupied territories was comparable, I would say only to that of Poland and some regions of Germany. During my youth in Belarus, I remember my daily walk to school in the small town of Gorki, which passed by a monument erected to commemorate the up to 2,000 Jewish and bellorruse men and women executed between 1941 and 1943 First time against Nazi forces.
The memory of the war was everywhere, but in the Soviet era, The day of victory used to be full of horror and sadness, since the veterans, already older, preferred not to remember the time they survived in the trenches under fierce enemy attacks. In addition to the huge casualties, World War II for the Soviet Union was different, also because it was always plagued by huge lies. It is well known that Stalin allied with Hitler in 1939 for the partition of Poland, and that the Soviet secret services executed thousands of Polish officers in 1940; But this was never discussed until the end of the Soviet era.
It should also be remembered that, after the beginning of the war, many Soviet soldiers and citizens, humiliated by the communists during the time of collectivization and purges, surrendered to the Germans or even changed the side: more than 600,000 of them still served in German auxiliary regiments in 1944, when their number began to decrease after the great losses, and has never been mentioned in the Soviet era. Soviet commanders were incredibly cruel to their men: While in the British army only 40 military were sentenced to death by military courts and executed throughout the war, in the Soviet army that figure amounted to 157,593 (!) Soldiers. Other tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers (about 118,000, to be precise) that survived the horrors of German captivity were sent to gulag concentration camps and never returned home. So there were many reasons not to be too happy even on Victory Day.
But over time, the festival became more cheerful, becoming almost the only day that linked to the entire Soviet people; And for the era of Perestroika, not even the opening of the Soviet archives or the rewriting of official history had reduced their importance. The collapse of communism has not achieved it either: in 1995, the celebrations in Moscow attended then President Bill Clinton and more than 50 heads of state around the world, And for years the day of the victory of Russia has been held throughout the former Soviet Union since it was recalled that it was not Russia, but the USSR, which won that brutal war.
However, in recent decades, the meaning of the event has changed significantly. First of all, Kremlin has made him a Russian festival par excellence; The Soviet elements were diminished and the role of other “United Nations” was practically silenced. Second, its meaning has changed, going from being a mostly popular festival to a “Military Glory Day” (In the Soviet era, only four military parades were held on this day between 1945 and 1990, while since 1995 they are organized annually).
Thirdly, it began to be used mainly for the glorification of the State, not of the people (and even when in 2011 the citizens of the Siberian city of Tomsk invented a new ritual of march through the streets with portraits of their parents or relatives who fought or died in the war, the Kremlin “privatized” the practice, regulating it completely). And, of course, The outbreak of war with Ukraine in 2014 completely changed the panoramasince Russia herself acquired many characteristics of a classical fascist state, even when her government typified as a crime the “rehabilitation of Nazism.”
Today, I must say that it was more than a mere coincidence that the day of Russian victory does not correspond to the “European” (and now, after Donald Trump’s recent decision), also “American.” The motto “Never Again”, which was associated with Western celebrations, directly opposes the current Russian motto: “We can repeat!” The veterans of World War II (whose official number in Russia fell below 7,000 in 2025) will soon be replaced in the parades by the participants of the Russian occupation forces in Ukraine, for those who are killing the children and grandchildren of the Soviet Ukrainian soldiers with whom the Russians fought side by side 80 years ago.
On May 9, a unique festival of friendship and brotherhood has been for decades, and cannot survive the current Putin policies (this year, even Kazakhstan, an ancient Soviet republic that contributed greatly to the joint victory by becoming the Soviet industrial power during the war and sending more than 1.3 million of its inhabitants to the front, where approximately half fell and 98 kazajos ethnic Heroes of the Soviet Union, ordered the total prohibition of all festivities throughout the country).
Today, in Russia, Victory Day is an official state holiday that, in my opinion, will hardly survive the Putin regime. Those who participated in that war will soon be dead; The Russian army now seems a brutal force composed of mercenaries and convicted criminals (according to recently approved laws, almost any person convicted by a court or still investigated for a crime can sign a military service contract and obtain the dissolution of its criminal case); Any feeling of friendship between Russia and the former Soviet republics seems to decrease rapidly.
These events seem a tragedy for a people that, in fact, lacks any other reference point in their modern history: no one seriously considers that the “Independence Day” of Russia, on June 12, 1991, and on the day of the October 1917 revolution, widely held in the Soviet era, are ideologically divisive. Putin, I would say, he is turning Russia into a country without friends, but also without a story of which to take pride in. Perhaps, at some point, when Russia reconsiders its European destiny and hits Western values, celebrate again on May 9, now as Europe’s Day, but this change could take decades instead of years.