With a traditional Victory Parade, Russian authorities marked the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. On May 9, thousands of troops and guests gathered in Moscow to commemorate the Red Army’s contribution to the liberation of Europe.
Among the attendees were Chinese President Xi Jinping, Burkinabé President Ibrahim Traoré, and a number of progressive Latin American leaders. Also present were representatives of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and others. Many of the visiting heads of state used their time in Russia to engage in talks on industrial and technological cooperation, to launch new bilateral initiatives, and to honor the memory of socialist figures and Global South contributors to the fight against fascism and Nazism.
Read more: Progressive Latin American presidents are in Moscow for the Victory Parade
Several of them, including Xi, used their meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin to link the legacy of the antifascist struggle to today’s context, criticizing NATO’s expansion eastward and Western efforts to sustain global dominance. Their discussions also recalled the support offered by other countries to the Soviet Union and European countries during World War II – support which is often absent in Western European narratives.
“We give credit to members of the Resistance who bravely fought Nazism as well as the troops of the allied armies of the United States, Great Britain and other countries. We remember and honor the feat of Chinese soldiers in the fight against Japanese militarism,” Putin stated at the opening of the parade.
In his speech, Putin also criticized what he described as a renewed Western push for global supremacy at all costs: “The Western globalist elites keep speaking about their exceptionalism, pit nations against each other and split societies, provoke bloody conflicts and coups, sow hatred…They do all that so as to keep dictating and imposing their will, their rights and rules on people, which in reality is a system of plundering, violence, and suppression.”
“They seem to have forgotten what the Nazis’ insane claims of global dominance led to,” he added. “They forgot who destroyed that monstrous, total evil, who stood up for their native land and did not spare their lives to liberate the peoples of Europe.”
Read more: Eighty years on: Remembering the defeat of fascism – or witnessing its return?
As troops marched across Red Square to mark the liberation anniversary, European leaders turned their attention elsewhere. There was no mention of the Soviet Union’s role in World War II by EU officials, who instead celebrated “Europe Day,” marking the 75th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the years that followed as “the longest era of peace and prosperity” for the European Union’s members, despite a current reality that contradicts that narrative and promotes militarization and armament.
Meanwhile, EU High Representative Kaja Kallas traveled to Ukraine to reaffirm the bloc’s military support for the Zelenskyy administration and announce the unilateral launch of a “Special Tribunal” targeting Russia’s military operations. As Kallas claimed that “every inch of Russia’s war has been documented” and that there would be “no room for impunity,” the EU continued to ignore Israel’s live-streamed genocide in Gaza and dismissed calls to sever all ties with the apartheid regime.
