Putin defends his Ukraine invasion, invoking World War II, but does not signal an escalation.

President Vladimir Putin used his Victory Day speech on Monday to try to channel Russian pride in defeating Nazi Germany into support for this year’s invasion of Ukraine.

Contrary to some expectations, he did not make any new announcements signaling an escalation of the onslaught.

Mr. Putin, speaking in Moscow’s Red Square on Russia’s most important secular holiday, marking the anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II, restated his past claims that attacking Ukraine was “inevitable” and “the only correct decision.”

It was, as expected, a call to battle using rhetoric slandering Ukraine’s defenders as “Nazis” while evoking Russia’s victorious World War II past.

But the speech was also conspicuous for what it did not include. Mr. Putin did not try to frame any part of the Ukraine war as a “victory,” offering no signal of an imminent end to the conflict. Read more

@nytimes