0825GMT/May 12 2025
RED SQUARE PARADE: Vladimir Putin hosted his Victory Day Parade on Friday in Red Square with more than 20 foreign leaders as his guests, up from nine last year. The guest of honour was Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping. In his address to Russian soldiers parading through central Moscow, Putin barely mentioned the war in Ukraine, instead saying: "Russia has been and will be an indestructible barrier to Nazism". (COMMENT: It's not unusual for Putin to avoid mentioning his war in Ukraine, after all, officially it is only a "Special Military Operation". There were plenty of references to defeating the Nazis in his speech, though, as you would expect. Putin is desperate to link the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union with his invasion of Ukraine in 2022 where he claims to be fighting modern-day Nazis. One interesting side note is the amount of time that Putin took shaking hands with North Korean generals at the parade. The Kremlin has been effusive over the support given to it by North Korea. This was a large parade with 11,500 soldiers marching through Red Square and plenty of tanks and APCs. Also, for the first time, the Victory Parade featured drones, carried on the back of trucks. This just shows how important drones have become in modern warfare.)
IMMORTAL REGIMATE PARADES: As for the 'Immortal Regiment' parades across Russia, Russian media said that these were well attended by hundreds of thousands of people. (NOTE: In many ways, these parades are more important for the Kremlin than the main military parade in Red Square. These are the parades that involve ordinary Russians carrying portraits of Red Army soldiers down streets. They are vital to Kremlin propaganda because they physically tie participants into its narrative. Media also reported that some people in the parades carried the portraits of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine, again blurring the line between the Soviet Union's fight against Nazi Germany and Russia's war in Ukraine.)
RESISTANCE: In a couple of rare acts of resistance in Russia, a pro-war 'V' sign was set on fire in the town of Kislovodsk in the southern Stavropol region and a protester in Moscow held a poster up in a central square that read: "No to war! Fascism will not pass". (COMMENT: It says so much about current-day Russia that these acts of subversion have become so rare. Also, both acts were carried out by individuals. It's just too dangerous for people to group together to challenge the Kremlin. According to a Russian lawyers association, the protester in Moscow was detained by the security services, hauled back to a police station and beaten.)
RETAIL GLOOM: Half of Russia's non-food retailers will post losses in 2025, the Union of Shopping Centres told Russian media. It said that retailers had reported a drop in sales of up to a third in Q1 compared to the same period last year. (COMMENT: This is consistent with a general trend of poor economic data coming out of Russia.)
FARM EQUIPMENT SALES STALL: Sales of new farm equipment in Russia have dropped by a third, industry insiders reported. They said that this was a direct consequence of high interest rates. (NOTE: Interest rates in Russia are 21%.)
POLAND TO CLOSE A RUSSIAN CONSULATE: Poland will close the Russian consulate in Krakow after accusing Russian saboteurs of setting alight a shopping centre in Krakow in May 2024. (NOTE: European governments have warned of an increase in so-called hybrid attacks by Russia. These are attacks aimed at destabilising European countries.)
PEACE TALKS: Turkey has offered to host Russia-Ukriane talks. (NOTE: Ukraine has said that a 30-day ceasefire is a precondition to the talks, but the Kremlin appears unwilling to agree to this.) (COMMENT: Both sides are still jostling for position around how and when to start peace deal negotiations. Turkey is a frontrunner for the location of peace talks because it hosted Russia-Ukraine talks in 2022.)
SPACE DEBRIS: A 500kg Soviet space rocket crashed into the Indian Ocean, 53 years after it was launched. Cosmos-482 was part of a failed unmanned Soviet mission to study Venus. (NOTE: There had been real concerns that this large piece of Space debris would crash into a city.)