Russia is cancelling Victory Day celebrations to hide its military losses, and is using alleged Kremlin drone strike as an excuse, experts say
A composite image shows Soviet T-34 tanks in Red Square during the Victory Day parade in Moscow, Russia on May 9, 2021, and a destroyed Russian tank in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, in January 2023.
- Russia is reducing its large-scale Victory Day parades, which are used to show its military strength.
- Experts said it is using an alleged Kremlin drone strike as an excuse to scale them back.
- But Russia likely wants to conceal its military losses in Ukraine, the ISW said.
Russia appears to be reducing its annual Victory Day celebrations this year so that it can conceal the degradation of its military, and is using an
alleged drone attack on the Kremlin as an excuse, experts said.
The Washington DC-based Institute for the Study of War
said in an update on Thursday that Russian officials are likely using the supposed attack on the Kremlin to cancel additional parades that were set to take place on May 9, the day Russia celebrates the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany.
The annual celebrations are designed as a demonstration of Russia's military strength, and typically involves military parades in Moscow's Red Square and across the country.
But this year's celebrations have been significantly scaled back.
The ISW said the Kremlin "likely hopes to limit typical May 9 events to conceal the degradation of the Russian military."
And it said the drone strike gave it an excuse to do so.
Russia
said on Wednesday that two drones were flown at the Kremlin in an attempt by Ukraine to kill President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine denied any involvement, and experts say that the operation may have been staged by Russia itself.
The ISW
said earlier this week that the strike was likely conducted by Russia to try to "bring the war home to a Russian domestic audience."
The large-scale parade in Moscow will now be closed off to the public,
the BBC reported, and officials in several other cities have cancelled their versions of the parade.
Russian officials have either given no reasons for the changes, or have blamed the threat of attacks by Ukraine.
Victory Day events usually show off advanced Russian military equipment, but a lot of that equipment is either being used in Ukraine or has been destroyed in the fighting, the ISW noted on Thursday.
Russia is losing around 150 tanks a month in Ukraine, according to
an analysis by open source intelligence platform Oryx, which estimates that Russia lost 1,779 tanks between February 2022 and February 2023. Russia has been recorded using decades-old tanks in Ukraine.
The White House
said this week that 20,000 Russian troops have been killed over the last five months alone.
The ISW said another reason the Kremlin likely wants to limit Victory Day events is that "celebrations honoring deceased service members could become a potential source of domestic backlash for Russia's high casualty figures in Ukraine."
The UK Ministry of Defence
said last month that honoring the fallen of previous generations "could easily blur into exposing the scope of the recent losses, which the Kremlin attempts to cover up."
