Russia marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II with a massive military parade on Red Square yesterday attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and a slew of foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Victory Day, which is celebrated in Russia on May 9, is the country’s most important secular holiday.
A Red Square parade and other ceremonies underline Moscow’s efforts to project its global power and cement the alliances it has forged while seeking a counterbalance to the West amid the conflict in Ukraine that has dragged on for a fourth year.
Photo: EPA-EFE
World War II is a rare event in the nation’s divisive history under communist rule that is revered by all political groups, and the Kremlin has used that sentiment to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power.
The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in what it calls the Great Patriotic War from 1941 to 1945, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche.
Festivities this year were overshadowed by Ukrainian drone attacks targeting Moscow and severe disruptions at the capital’s airports.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Russian flag carrier Aeroflot on Wednesday morning canceled more than 100 flights to and from Moscow, and delayed over 140 others as the military was repelling repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on the capital.
Russian authorities have tightened security ahead of the parade, and cellphone Internet outages have been reported amid electronic countermeasures aimed at foiling more potential drone attacks.
Speaking at the parade, Putin hailed Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, saying that “we are proud of their courage and determination, their spiritual force that always has brought us victory.”
Photo: AP
The Russian leader has declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire starting on Wednesday to coincide with the Victory Day celebrations, but warned that Russian troops would retaliate to any attacks.
Moscow has been reluctant to accept a US-proposed 30-day truce that Ukraine has accepted, linking it to a halt in Western arms supplies to Ukraine and Kyiv’s mobilization effort, conditions Ukraine and its Western allies have rejected.
Ukrainian authorities reported scores of Russian strikes yesterday that killed at least two people in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and damaged buildings.
As the Red Square parade and other festivities unfolded in Moscow, dozens of European officials were meeting in Lviv, in western Ukraine, to endorse the creation of a special tribunal tasked to prosecute Russian officials accused of war crimes.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,