UKRAINE PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine: for Kyiv and its media, the May 9, 2026 parade is above all a demonstration of what Russia can no longer show. Ukrainska Pravda and the Kyiv Post highlight that internet was cut in central Moscow at the precise moment of the parade — an unprecedented security measure betraying fear of a symbolically devastating Ukrainian drone strike. The parade lasted less than an hour, with no tanks or aircraft. Anti-war protesters attempted to make themselves heard on the margins. The SBU announced it had neutralised a Russian agent in Odesa planning an attack for May 9. Kyiv refuses to recognise the rhetorical legitimacy of Putin's framing: instrumentalising the 1945 victory to justify a war of aggression is, for Ukraine, a desecration of memory.