|
 Russia's Vladimir Putin has used the anniversary to whip up
patriotism and fuel anti-Western sentiment, and at a parade in Kiev
President Petro Poroshenko said Moscow was trying to hog the credit
for the World War Two victory at Ukraine's expense.
Though Western leaders stayed away, Putin was joined under the
Kremlin's walls by about 30 foreign leaders, including Chinese
President Xi Jinping, sitting on his right-hand side.
In a sign of closer ties between the two, a column of Chinese troops
took part. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was also
among those watching.
Dignitaries from India, former Soviet republics and communist-era
allies such as Cuba, also attended, underlining Russia's role as an
outcast in Europe.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel skipped the parade, as did U.S.
President Barack Obama and the French and British leaders, but will
attend a wreath-laying ceremony in Moscow on Sunday.
 On show was the Armata T-14, Russia's first new tank to be deployed
for 40 years, and soldiers, some in World War Two uniforms, filed
past under blue skies and bright sunshine.
War veterans watched from the grandstand, their chests bristling
with medals, while crowds of people choked sidestreets around the
Kremlin, cheering and shouting as fighter jets roared over Moscow's
city center.
"Victory day is the most important holiday for Russia. In
practically every Russian family, someone has died fighting for this
country," said 43-year-old former marine Alexander Smolkin.
"My own grandfather died defending Russia, this is our day to
remember them," he said, adjusting his light-blue beret, medals and
military fatigues.
Putin has warned that fascism could be on the rise again and is
suggesting other countries are rewriting history to play down
Moscow's role in winning the war.
"The basic principles of international cooperation have been ignored
more often in the last decades. The principles which were hard won
by humankind following the global hardships of the war," he told
rows of soldiers standing to attention.
"We've seen attempts to create a unipolar world," he said, echoing a
2007 speech when he lambasted the West's world view.
Many Russians saw the West's boycotting of the parade as disrespect.
An estimated 27 million Soviet citizens were killed in the 1941-45
war. Ukraine says it lost between 8-10 million of its citizens,
including 3.5 million in the Soviet forces.
Poroshenko rebuked Moscow for accusing Kiev of using "fascist"
methods to oust Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovich in
February last year which triggered the confrontation and sparked
Russia's annexation of Crimea and a pro-Russian separatist rebellion
in eastern Ukraine.
[to top of second column] |
A minority of Ukrainian fighters in World War Two joined a militia
that was prepared to ally itself with the Nazi invaders to fight
Soviet Communist rule, leaving Ukrainian nationalism vulnerable
since to accusations of fascist sympathies.
"It is the utmost cynicism to depict our country as a supposedly
fascist state. It is done with the aim of justifying to the Russian
people its own criminal action - Russia's aggression against
Ukraine," Poroshenko said.
In a further sign of distancing itself from its former Soviet
master, Ukraine joined most of Europe in a separate ceremony on
Friday, a day before Russia.
At a second ceremony on Saturday, Poroshenko said: "We will never
again mark this day with the Russian scenario which cold-bloodedly
uses our victory day as an apology for its expansionist policies and
for keeping its neighbors in its orbit and recreating empire."
More than 6,100 people have been killed in fighting between
pro-Russian separatists and government forces in eastern Ukraine
which Kiev says has been stoked by Russia. Moscow, which annexed the
Crimea peninsula from Ukraine last year, accuses the West of
orchestrating the events that led to the Ukrainian uprising.
Though a ceasefire is still tenuously holding, the Ukrainian
military said on Saturday that separatists, backed by Russia, were
keeping up attacks with artillery and mortar bombing on government
forces in the east and south-east of Ukraine.
It said four Ukrainian servicemen had been wounded in attacks in the
past 24 hours.
(Additional reporting by Natalya Zinets in Kiev; Writing by Richard
Balmforth and Timothy Heritage; Editing by Louise Ireland)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
