Across more than two decades in power, President Vladimir Putin has worked to turn Russia’s historic World War II memorial event into a celebration of future military glory and global clout.

But this year’s Victory Day jamboree only underscores his failure to deliver.

The pared-back festivities on May 9 — commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany at the cost of an estimated 27 million Soviet lives — is the clearest sign yet that the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine is taking its toll. 

“It will be the strangest Victory Day of the Putin era,” exiled Russian journalist Dmitry Kolezev remarked in a recent podcast.

For the first time since 2007, when — under Putin — the parade began incorporating military hardware, there will be no tanks or missile launchers rolling through Red Square. 

Instead of Soviet-style military flexing, Muscovites are being treated to a different historical reenactment, namely a return to the pre-digital age.

Text messages and mobile internet have been shut down as authorities brace for possible Ukrainian drone attacks, disrupting everything from taxis and food delivery to ATMs and contactless payments. 

In some 27 Russian cities, parades have been canceled altogether.

The Kremlin defends the restrictions as a necessary precaution against the “terrorist threat of the Kyiv regime.” It has also tried to downplay the significance of the date, arguing that unlike last year’s 80th jubilee, this is not a landmark year. 

But rather than convincing Russians that they are fighting a uniquely evil enemy — one the Kremlin’s propaganda machine denounces as “Nazi” — the limitations expose Putin’s rigid commitment to a conflict that is increasingly disruptive at home and that, since January, has outlasted the Soviet role in World War II. 

The security measures around the parade “reflect a new phase of the war, which is now coming directly to Russia, as well as the paranoia of the security services,” Moscow-based analyst Andrei Kolesnikov told POLITICO. 

For more than four years, the Kremlin has reassured Russians that the “special military operation,” as it calls the war in Ukraine, would not intrude on their day-to-day lives.

This year that script has — for the first time in almost two decades — been significantly altered.

Bad look

Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine’s long-range “Flamingo” missiles have struck Russian energy and military infrastructure deep in the country’s heartland, more than a thousand kilometers from the frontline. 

In recent days, drones have paralyzed dozens of airports. More worryingly for Putin, one successfully reached a residential high-rise just six kilometers from the Kremlin. 

As Russia’s defenses are being tested in plain sight, the Kremlin is also struggling to uphold a second promise: global relevance. 

Last year, Venezuela’s now-captured former President Nicolás Maduro was among roughly three dozen foreign dignitaries attending the parade. 

This year, the list of guests has thinned out to a handful of leaders; those of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia and Laos. However, Armenia’s Nikol Pashanyan declined to attend, citing upcoming elections, shortly after hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of an EU summit in Yerevan, angering Moscow.

Putin aide Yuri Ushakov insists the shorter guest list is a reflection of Moscow’s decision not to send out invitations. 

But the optics are less than ideal; only Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico will help sustain Putin’s narrative that Russia leads an alternative, global force to American hegemony, though even he has said he will skip the parade itself. 

As one middle-aged man asked aloud during a Moscow street poll by the Russian outlet Sotavision: “The country is suffering defeats on all fronts. So what are they [Russian leaders] celebrating?”

Ceasefire duel

In a last-ditch effort to shield its flagship national holiday, Russia’s defense ministry announced a two-day ceasefire starting May 8. 

Ukraine countered it with its own open-ended ceasefire two days earlier, testing Russia’s real commitment to peace. But after Moscow responded with yet another wave of deadly strikes on Ukrainian cities, Zelenskyy threatened to “respond symmetrically.” 

Russia, in turn, has vowed to hit central Kyiv if it targets the celebrations. Tellingly, for the first time in years, no foreign journalists will be allowed to attend the Moscow parade, presumably to ensure control of the narrative should anything go wrong.  

In a bid to protect the capital, more than 40 air defense installations have reportedly been redirected to Moscow, leaving other parts of Russia more exposed, something Ukraine could potentially exploit. 

But even if Russia’s Victory Day festivities go ahead without incident, Ukraine may have already achieved part of its goal: to disrupt ordinary Russians’ lives in the hope they’ll begin questioning their leadership’s priorities.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich came up with the idea of celebrating it [Victory Day] in a grand way,” another Moscow resident told Sotavision in a rare instance of public criticism of the Russian president. 

“But something has gone wrong. Maybe something needs to be fixed at the core,” he said.