Did May 9 Mark a Turning Point in the War?

Putin’s May 9 Victory Day parade was a study in weakness: no military hardware, a handful of allied leaders, and a 45-minute runtime. Ukraine’s drone campaign forced him to seek Trump’s protection – exposing his vulnerability. Meanwhile, Ukraine has seized the strategic initiative, Europe has stepped up financing and arms, and the US under Trump has made itself irrelevant to the war’s outcome. Make us preferred on Google Flip Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin looks on after the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2024. Russia celebrates the 79th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. (Photo by Mikhail KLIMENTYEV / POOL / AFP) Content Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Flip Make us preferred on Google Anton Gerashchenko, one of my favorites on X, noted that on May 9 “a turning point in the war took place.” I am inclined to agree. Gerashchenko continued: “For the first time, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin publicly showed his weakness and inability to independently protect his capital, his parade, and himself from our strikes.” Everything was pathetic. The “parade” lasted 45 minutes. It was only marches and music, no military hardware. Putin had barely managed to rope in a handful of presidents, notably from Belarus and Kazakhstan. He came late and left early in a car on Red Square as he was truly scared. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . The top event in the parade was a small group of North Korean soldiers, underscoring that Russia, incorrectly claiming to be the second strongest army in the world, needed tiny North Korea’s support. Rendering this point all the more humiliating, North Korea’s President Kim Jong Un did not bother to attend. Since Donald Trump returned as president of the US, he has appeared as Putin’s strongest supporter, but now Putin has turned this to his disadvantage. Trump, as always obedient to his master, appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Putin’s call for a three-day ceasefire. Zelensky did so, but cleverly, he issued a decree specifying the coordinates of the Red Square in Moscow for when it was not supposed to be bombed. In their joint action, Putin and Trump displayed weakness rather than strength. They acknowledged that they were in the hands of Zelensky. As Gerashchenko writes: “De facto, Putin asked Trump to protect him from the Ukrainians.” Other Topics of Interest Armenia’s Pashinyan Skips Russia-Led Summit After Putin Urges EU-or-EAEU Choice Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will miss the upcoming Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit in late May, days after Moscow told Armenia to choose between the EU and the Moscow-led bloc amid disputes between Moscow and Yerevan. As a former Swedish diplomat in Moscow, I was happy to see that Ukraine bombed Mosfilmovsky Dom, a high-rise building one kilometer closer to the Kremlin than our embassy on Mosfilmovskaya ulitsa, a few days earlier. Trump claimed that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each, but so far, no action has been reported from Russia. If Trump says so, it is likely to be untrue, because he lies most of the time. Let this sink in! Putin appeals to his servant, Trump, and receives his support, but that makes both of them look weaker. President Zelensky has indirectly hammered this point home by traveling around the Persian Gulf offering at least five Gulf states Ukrainian arms services, while the US has been ineffective and excessively expensive. The US consulted with nobody but Israel and abused everybody. After it had failed to protect its Gulf allies, Trump refused to accept the support Zelensky offered, and Marco Rubio even complained to Saudi Arabia when it accepted defense cooperation with Ukraine. The US is no ally of Ukraine. Whatever hold Putin has on Trump, we had better recognize that Trump and his obedient servants work for Russia and not Ukraine, Europe, or the West. The good news is that everybody understands that now. Europe is following Ukraine’s wise lead in foreign policy, although it is somewhat more soft-spoken. In September 2013, I attended the Yalta European Strategy conference at Livadia Palace in Yalta. Condoleezza Rice made an excellent speech about the events in Bucharest on Dec. 21, 1989. The ruthless dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu spoke from the balcony of the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. All of a sudden, the crowd started booing. Ceaușescu fled with a helicopter from the roof of the Central Committee building. A few days later, he and his cruel spouse Elena were executed. One of the attendees of Rice’s remarkable speech was President Viktor Yanukovych. He wanted to be photographed with Rice, but she managed to disappear, and sensibly so. Five months later, on Feb. 21, 2014, Yanukovych followed Ceaușescu’s lead, fleeing to Russia with a sizeable amount of Ukrainian government money. Putin is a survivor. He has been deep down many times before, but he has managed to come back by just waiting. His outstanding skill is to wait. Yet the war with Ukraine is far more serious than any of his prior crises. Furthermore, Ukraine and Europe have together managed to change several important factors: So how can the war end? There is only one natural end. Ukrainians are exhausted but they have nowhere to go. They have to fight until the bitter end. For Russia, this war is an unnecessary nuisance. World War I ended when various German cities revolted in 1918, although the German troops held firmly far beyond the German borders in the west, south and east. Similarly, the Russian war against Ukraine is likely to end when the Russian elite say enough is enough and remove Putin from power. When and how this will happen, we cannot know, because then it would not happen, but on May 9, Putin informed us through his behavior that he considers that a great risk. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.