would, of course, do the right thing and step down. tonight with the context, former policy advisor to the national security council hagar chemali, and christopher steele, former british intelligence officer. hello and warm welcome to the programme. there was no claim of victory, no assurance that the fighting would end soon. instead president putin use the victory day parade to tell the broader russian public they could carry on as normal. the generals would handle the special operation, he said reading ukraine of nazis. the president, dressed in black, cut a sombre figure as the ranks of russian troops marched by, a parade full of the pomp and militarism we have come to expect, and on the podium he listed many of the familiar grievances we have heard before. he compared today s struggle with the great patriotic war, blaming nato and the west for the threat they posed to the motherland. translation: preparations were 0 enl translation: preparations were openly under transla
the latest. welcome to the show, everyone. it s 9 a.m. here in ukraine, but all eyes are on moscow where russia s annual victory day parade is about an hour or so away. this is video from rehearsals from saturday. the holiday marks the defeat of nazi germany during world war ii but today under the shadow of a new war in europe, the event taking on new significance. it s been warned russian president vladimir putin could use this holiday to make a major announcement about the war in ukraine. the victory celebration comes one day after ukraine marked its own day of remembrance with president volodymyr zelenskyy accusing russia of failing to learn the lessons of world war ii. russia has forgotten everything that was very important to the victors of world war ii, but ukraine and the whole free world will remind it so that no one will forget so that really important words never again which are repeated all over the free world every year on the days of remembrance of the vic
about this conflict in ukraine. what can you tell us about putin s rhetoric today and the reaction? well, this was a much-anticipated event. speculation, the victory day parade would be used to make an important announcement about what russia calls the special military operation in ukraine. possibly a formal declaration of war or a mass mobilization of troops. but that didn t happen. what we did witness, though, was a spectacular display of russian military might, even though the air display was cancelled because of bad weather. 11,000 troops marched over the cobbles of red square followed by columns of tanks and rocket launchers and, of course, those intercontinental ballistic missiles. putin tried to justify the conflict in ukraine, that russia was facing an imminent attack and it had to act preemptively, claims that have been disputed by ukraine and by its allies. he also drew parallels with the soviet victory over nazi germany in the 40s which is what victory day is mea
described and has prohibited the broadcast of information the government regards as false. with that matthew filed this report just moments ago. reporter: this was a much anticipated event amid speculation that the victory day parade would be used to make an important announcement about what russia calls its special military operation in ukraine. possibly a formal declaration of war or a mass mobilization of troops. but neither of those things happened. what we did witness was a spectacular display of russian military might. even though the air display was cancelled because of bad weather, 11,000 troops marched over the cobbles of red square followed by columns of tanks, rocket launchers and interballistic missiles. vladimir putin repeated claims trying to justify the conflict in ukraine that russia was faising an eminent attack and that it had to act preemptively. he also drew parallels between the soviet victory over germany in the 1940s which is what victory day is meant
ukraine s president, volodymyr zelenskyy, who declared the victory in the end will belong to ukraine. now, putin did not declare war or try to mobilize more troops, as analysts suspected. he also canceled the victory day air shows across russia that had been scheduled. the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. believes this shows that putin recognizes that his war is not going well. president putin has recognized he has no victory to celebrate. his efforts in ukraine have not succeeded. he was not able to go into ukraine and bring them to their knees in a few days and have them surrender. he gave up on taking kyiv. in the east, ukrainians are fighting back in the luhansk region after russian units built multiple bridges over a key river. these could allow putin s forces to cut off supply routes to the region. ukrainian officials fear as many as 60 people are dead after they say russia dropped a bomb on a school over the weekend. let s turn to cnn s erin burnett in the capital o