For years, Vladimir Putin's propaganda machine has used the Soviet victory over Germany in 1945, and its commemoration on May 9, as a symbol of Russia's power and righteousness — and, in a sense, the moral foundation of Putin's authority.

This may have been the year the Russian president's "Victory Day" cult backfired.

Stanislav Kucher, a Russian journalist in exile who now lives in New York, commented on his YouTube stream that if a parade is a symbol of strength, then this was Volodymyr Zelenskyy's parade — and a symbol of Putin's weakness.

With Ukrainian drones regularly hitting military and military-adjacent targets (such as oil refineries) deep inside Russia, the Russian leadership was extremely nervous about an attack on the parade. Putin, who had previously rejected ceasefire offers, asked for a three-day ceasefire using President Donald Trump as his intermediary. The optics were not great: the Russian president was asking the American president to........

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