Victory Day: This was not a normal parade with many having bought into the Kremlin’s narrative
Victory Day parades in Russia generally see throngs of people lining the city’s main thoroughfares, cheering on the tanks as they pass, the armoured vehicles and S-400 anti-aircraft systems and, the spectator’s favourite, the fearsome YARS intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a world-ending nuclear payload across the globe.
The flyover is another highlight, with the final flourish always the tricolour Russian flag trailing across the sky.
But this was not a normal Victory Day.
The public were allowed nowhere near it.
This time round the only real viewing potential was if you were inside Red Square and that is invite only.
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Russia’s scaled-back Victory Day parade compared to previous years
Normally foreign media are accredited to film there too, but not this year.
Muscovites could catch the parade as it drove out of Red Square, but there wasn’t much of one to speak of.
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Russia holds ‘scaled back’ Victory Day parade
Just over 50 pieces of military hardware, the only tank on display was the historic T-34 ‘Victory Tank’ from the Second World War. The full drive-by took just five minutes with the air show cancelled long in advance of Victory Day itself.
The onlookers we met, once they’d found a viewing spot at last, seemed sanguine about the reduced programme.
“It makes sense as a lot of the vehicles are needed in Ukraine,” Artyom told us.
‘This year they did everything tactfully’
It reflects the tone on Russia’s nationalist telegram channels.
“I must confess I was afraid that tanks and armoured personnel carriers, so necessary in the war zone, would be driven across Red Square,” wrote the well-known military correspondent Alexander Kots. “But this year they did everything tactfully.”
Granted, it tends to be the more patriotically-minded who bother to get up in the morning to see what they can of the Victory Day parade, but the mood we encountered was distinctly sour towards foreign media.
“You’re just propaganda”, “you want to say terrible things about our president”, and “tell the truth” were just some of the comments directed our way. We hear it more and more.
A Russian YARS intercontinental ballistic missile system drives past the US embassy
So many have bought into the Kremlin’s narrative wholesale
It tends to be the older generations who don’t care how outspoken they are.
That’s because so many have bought into the Kremlin’s narrative wholesale.
“It is all the US and Ukraine’s tricks,” said Andrei from Rostov, holding back the expletives. “Our grandfathers should have finished them off better, in 1945, so that this wouldn’t be happening now.”
Russian soldiers march towards Red Square. Pic: AP
Many younger Russians refuse to talk
Younger Russians tend to be more careful.
Many refuse to talk. One couple told us they would be thrown out of their university if they did.
Another woman said she felt militarism had no place in the 21st century given the war in Ukraine and other terrible things.
I asked whether she worried about calling it a war.
“It is not legal but it’s the name of what’s happening,” she replied. We did not broadcast her answer.
Iskanders, mobile short-range ballistic missile system launchers, roll by during the military parade. Pic: AP
‘If [Ukraine] could do it on the same scale, they would’
Artyom listed the three assassination attempts that have seen nationalist figures targeted and killed since Daria Dugina’s death last summer.
There was another car bomb at the weekend in which the well-known writer Zakhar Prilepin was targeted, though it was his companion in the car who was killed.
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Artyom was angry that Ukraine and its Western allies weren’t bothered by these attacks.
When I suggested it might be because of the scale and frequency of Russian missile and UAV strikes on Ukrainian targets, he said Ukrainians were shelling Russian cities too, in places like Belgorod.
“It’s not quite the same scale though, is it?” I asked.
“If they could do it on the same scale, they would,” came the answer.
More than 100 politicians from 24 different countries, including the UK, the US and the EU, have written a joint letter condemning China over the “arbitrary detention and unfair trial” of Jimmy Lai, a tycoon and pro-democracy campaigner.
The parliamentarians, led by senior British Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, are “urgently” demanding the immediate release of the 77-year-old British citizen, who has been held in solitary confinement at a maximum security prison in Hong Kong for almost four years.
The letter – which will be embarrassing for Beijing – was made public on the eve of Mr Lai’s trial resuming and on the day after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a G20 summit of economic powers in Brazil.
It also comes as Hong Kong jailed 45 pro-democracy activists.
The group of politicians, who also include representatives from Canada, Australia, Spain, Germany, Ukraine and France, said Mr Lai’s treatment was “inhumane”.
“He is being tried on trumped-up charges arising from his peaceful promotion of democracy, his journalism and his human rights advocacy,” they wrote in the letter, which has been seen by Sky News.
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Starmer meets Chinese president
“The world is watching as the rule of law, media freedom and human rights in Hong Kong are eroded and undermined.
“We stand together in our defence of these fundamental freedoms and in our demand that Jimmy Lai be released immediately and unconditionally.”
Sir Keir raised the case of Mr Lai during remarks released at the start of his talks with Mr Xi on Monday – the first meeting between a British prime minister and the Chinese leader in six years.
The prime minister could be heard expressing concerns about reports of Mr Lai’s deteriorating health. However, he did not appear to call for his immediate release.
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From October: ‘This is what Hong Kong is’
Ms Kearns, the MP for Rutland and Stamford in the East Midlands, said the meeting had been an opportunity to be unequivocal that the UK expects Mr Lai to be freed.
“Jimmy Lai is being inhumanely persecuted for standing up for basic human values,” she said in a statement, released alongside the letter.
“He represents the flame of freedom millions seek around the world.
“We have a duty to fight for Jimmy Lai as a British citizen, and to take a stand against the Chinese Community Party’s erosion of rule of law in Hong Kong.
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“This letter represents the strength of international feeling and commitment of parliamentarians globally to securing Jimmy Lai’s immediate release and return to the UK with his family.”
Mr Lai was famously the proprietor of the Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily in Hong Kong, which wrote scathing reports about the local authorities and the communist government in mainland China after Britain handed back the territory to Beijing in 1997.
The tabloid was a strong supporter of pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets of Hong Kong to demonstrate against the government in 2019.
But the media mogul was arrested the following year – one of the first victims of a draconian new security law imposed by the Chinese Communist Party.
His newspaper was closed after his bank accounts were frozen.
Mr Lai has since been convicted of illegal assembly and fraud. He is now on trial for sedition over articles published in Apple Daily.
World
Hong Kong jails 45 pro-democracy activists after accusing them of trying to overthrow the city’s government
Forty-five pro-democracy activists have been jailed in Hong Kong’s largest ever national security trial.
The activists sentenced with jail terms ranging from four years to ten years were accused of conspiracy to commit subversion after holding an unofficial primary election in Hong Kong in 2020.
They were arrested in 2021.
Hong Kong authorities say the defendants were trying to overthrow the territory’s government.
Democracy activist Benny Tai received the longest sentence of ten years. He became the face of the movement when thousands of protesters took to the city’s streets during the “Umbrella Movement” demonstrations.
However, Hong Kong officials accused him of being behind the plan to organise elections to select candidates.
Tai had pleaded guilty, his lawyers argued he believed his election plan was allowed under the city’s Basic Law.
Another prominent activist Joshua Wong received a sentence of more than four years.
Joshua Wong was sentenced to more than four years Pic: AP
Wong became one of the leading figures in the protests. His activism started as a 15 year old when he spearheaded a huge rally against a government plan to change the school curriculum.
Then in 2019 Hong Kong erupted in protests after the city’s government proposed a bill that would allow extradition to mainland China. It peaked in June 2019 when Amnesty International reported that up to two million people marched on the streets, paralysing parts of Hong Kong’s business district.
The extradition bill was later dropped but it had ignited a movement demanding political change and freedom to elect their own leaders in Hong Kong.
China’s central government called the protests “riots” that could not continue.
Hong Kong introduced a national security law in the aftermath of the protests.
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A woman is taken away by police outside the court Pic: Reuters
The US has called the trial “politically motivated”.
Dozens of family and friends of the accused were waiting for the verdict outside the West Kowloon Magistrates Court.
British citizen and media mogul Jimmy Lai is due to testify on Wednesday.
Meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in Brazil, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told China’s President Xi Jinping he’s concerned about the health of Lai.
He faces charges of fraud and the 2019 protests. He has also been charged with sedition and collusion with foreign forces.
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