May 9 Is a Revered Day in Russia. For Many, Putin Has Hijacked It.

Olga Romanova’s grandmother served as a frontline nurse in World War II. She was small and thin, Ms. Romanova said, but somehow carried “big, grown, wounded men” to safety. She met her husband on the eastern front.

To Ms. Romanova, Russia’s May 9 holiday, marking the Soviet victory over the Nazis, is about remembering those grandparents, a day “to extend our love to them.”

But this year, for President Vladimir V. Putin, May 9 means something very different. Monday’s commemoration will be a government-orchestrated show of Russian might and a claim of rightful dominance over a lost empire — a day to galvanize public support for the war by slandering Ukraine as a successor to Nazi Germany.

“They transformed this unifying myth that Russia had into a justification for an actual war,” said Maxim Trudolyubov, a Russian journalist. “It’s kind of subtly turned everything upside down — a cult of victory into a cult of war.” Read more

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