In his speech on the morning of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a direct connection between history and the present.

Calling the "special military operation" a "denazification" of Ukraine, he portrayed the war as a continuation of the fight against Nazi Germany Wise attempts to prevent or at least delay the start of the war.

But the attempt to "appease the aggressor on the eve of the Great Patriotic War" turned out to be a mistake for which the Russian people paid a terrible price.

"A second time we will not allow such a mistake, we do not have the right to do so."

Reinhard Veser

Editor in Politics.

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Russian propaganda took up this motif in many ways.

The areas in southern and eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian troops are described as "liberated from Nazism".

In the past few days, the white-blue-red flag of Russia has often not been raised in front of public buildings, but the "banner of victory" - copies of the red flag with hammer and sickle that Soviet soldiers raised at the end of World War II in May 1945 hoisted at the Reichstag in Berlin.

feverish tension

Because of this link between the Second World War and the war in Ukraine, it has been expected for weeks that something special must happen on the anniversary of the end of the war, which is celebrated in Russia on May 9 as "Victory Day".

Given the military failures in Ukraine, it is believed, Putin is under pressure to present something on this symbolic date.

From the Russian media it can be read that the country is looking forward to the day with feverish anticipation.

The West half let itself be infected and half fueled the expectation that a significant turning point must come on May 9th.

The speculations about what could happen are completely contradictory: some suspect that Putin will use the day to announce a success in Ukraine, however defined;

others doubt that he will then officially declare the "military special operation" a war and order general mobilization.

Putin did not just create the reasons for the suggestion that he must do something special on May 9 through his speech on the morning of February 24.

During the almost 23 years of his rule, he elevated Victory Day to Russia's most important national holiday.

In speeches, public rituals, films and books, the victory in the "Great Patriotic War" was declared the linchpin of Russian history and exalted as one of the core of the Russian nation and its identity.

In the succession of glorious victories against overwhelming opponents that Putin likes to present Russian history as, the defeat of Hitler's Germany is presented as the greatest and most important success.

Russia also emphasizes its prominent role by commemorating the end of the war on a different date than Western Europe.