I’m a Ukrainian American. Here are my thoughts on Putin’s Victory Day parade.

80 years of lies and oppression... we will not tolerate it in Ukraine or in America.

If lying were an international sport, Team Russia would dominate. Assuming they were able to compete, that is.

Leading the team: Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, whose lack of shame in denying reality would be legendary.

But would he win? Of course he would win… and if he doesn’t, he would just say he did. That’s how it works in Russia. Peskov’s propaganda puppets will report that up is down and water is dry. In Russia, the truth is whatever he says it is.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov holds the controls to information – past and present – in Russia. Photo credit: Reuters

Team USA would stand no chance. When the U.S. lied to start a war, members of the George W. Bush Administration said Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” But there were no weapons of mass destruction. It was an easy lie. But Russian lies are different. Their lies tell a story. Their lies have cosmonaut imagination and Matryoshka doll layers.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the lie went, leads a neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv. Remember that one? Nevermind that Zelensky is Jewish and his great-grandparents were murdered by Nazi forces. We must conduct a special military operation to liberate our Ukrainian brethren from the neo-Nazis in Kyiv.

Now that is a lie. But it’s not enough to tell a good lie. Russian lie doctrine is to commit to the lie. To protect the lie. When it came to his so-called “special military operation,” that’s exactly what he did.

Putin signed a law requiring all information about the “special military operation” to use Peskov’s “official position.” The words “war” and “invasion” were prohibited. The law made clear that Russia was not using bombs and Russia was certainly not killing Ukrainian civilians.

Western media fled. Independent Russian outlets were shut down. But Putin wasn’t done.

He also made it illegal to “discredit” the military. “Discrediting” is the propagandized translation for what we in free countries call protesting. Five thousand protesters had been arrested in Russia already – now their crimes were criminally unpatriotic.

Posting something on social media that the Kremlin didn’t like or even holding up a sheet of blank paper fell under this law. Violations were subject to a maximum 15-year prison sentence.

The “discrediting” stopped. And just like that, Putin’s lies were practically set in stone. The “official position” won, because in Russia, the opposite of lies is not truth – it’s prison.

---

Russia rewrote WWII to cloud over its atrocities.

Does your country have parts of its history you’re not very proud of? Russia doesn’t.

As other countries struggle with how to address difficult and painful subjects, one “solution” is the Russian method: Just don’t talk about it. Don’t address it. Don’t teach it. Don’t learn from it. In fact, it never happened.

In Russia, the years 1932, 1933, 1939, and 1940 most certainly did not happen.

In 1932 and 1933, Soviet Russian dictator Joseph Stalin manufactured a famine in Ukraine. Four million Ukrainians died. If you’re in the U.S. or another free country, you can look up “Holodomor.”

Anytime you’re feeling down about something happening past or present, there’s a Russian solution: Just don’t think about it. Even better, make it illegal to talk about! Sure – 13 percent of your population perished – but wouldn’t it be better if it didn’t happen? Well for Russia, it didn’t. Everything’s better now, right?

And by the way, not only did it not happen, but shame on Ukraine’s leaders for saying that it did! That’s what Putin wrote in an essay before his invasion. Shame on the leaders in Kyiv for “justify[ing] their country’s independence” in a way that is so mean to Russia, Putin said.

Then there’s 1939 and 1940. Those years completely didn’t happen. Like when Soviet Russia schemed with Nazi Germany, taking a pen to a map of Europe to decide who would invade whom? Didn’t happen.

Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania… just six countries brutally invaded by Soviet Russia in two years, but none of them happened.

Russia schemed with Nazi Germany to divide Europe between them. In 1939 and 1940, Russia invaded the six sovereign nations. Source: wikimedia.org

But when Poland (1999), and Estonia (2004), Latvia (2004), and Lithuania (2004) all joined NATO, that did happen. Even according to Putin. And he’s still mad about it.

That’s part of why he invaded Ukraine, of course. He wanted to stop countries from joining NATO, but as a result of his aggression Finland and Sweden joined NATO.

There is no WWII in Russian history. There is only the Great Patriotic War. But here’s the clever thing the Russians did: They didn’t just use another name for the war. They changed the timeline, too.

The Great Patriotic War begins the day Nazi Germany invaded Russia in 1941. What do Russians call the war years of 1939 and 1940? Nothing. Nothing at all. It was just the Great Patriotic War starting in 1941.

Indeed, the Russian people suffered gravely under Nazi invasion. But nevermind that Stalin was a miserable wartime leader, a fool to trust the Nazis, and a war criminal who left his civilians unprotected as war raged across Europe. Putin admires him.

To hear Putin and the Russians celebrate Victory Day, it's almost as if the Russian people bore all the cost of the Great Patriotic War. In fact, Armenia, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine each lost a higher percentage of their population than Soviet Russia.

To sum up the Victory Day parade, Soviet Russia was minding its business back in 1941 when the Nazis invaded, but the heroes won in the end… that’s all. That’s all that happened.

---

80 years later, they’re still lying.

Friday marked Putin’s fourth annual Victory Day parade celebrating an 80-year old victory despite no victory today. It’s no surprise. From start to finish, these parades are a lie. An elaborate, 80-year lie about Russia’s past and its present. A lie about invasion, subjugation, occupation, repression, purges, and genocide.

But here’s the truth: Soviet Russia chose Nazi Germany as their partner in WWII because the Kremlin shared Nazi Germany’s aims of conquest no matter how many people died along the way.

Russia today continues to demonstrate a disregard for human life, deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians in their schools, churches, markets, apartment buildings, and hospitals. They murdered nine children at a playground in President Zelensky’s home city just to send a message. Peskov still says Russia never targets civilians.

A Ukrainian first responder gathers himself as the dust settles following Putin’s Palm Sunday attack on civilians in Sumy. Photo credit: Getty.

More than 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted and sent to Russia for “re-education” as Russians. For these actions, Putin is an internationally wanted war criminal. Show up at The Hague, Mr. Putin. Tell them it didn’t happen.

---

Military parades are about the dictator, not the military.

Dictators like Putin love military parades because it’s the day they appear most powerful. Their desire for validation doesn’t show a lot of strength.

For Putin, a small man whose health appears to be deteriorating, May 9 is the day he can feel his tallest and most vibrant. He doesn’t merely show up to the parade; he orchestrates it for his own preservation.

---

The Russian people roll over. Americans resist.

Americans have learned more information about Russia’s military in the past three years than have the Russian people. Western media is able to report both additional and accurate information that cuts through “official position” spin and lies without risking 15-year jail terms. Western journalists are on the ground in Ukraine.

What are Russian state-run media “journalists” doing in the meantime? They’re checking their phones to see if Peskov’s daily dictations have hit their inbox. Peskov will tell them which topics to discuss, what they will say, and what they will not say.

Russian state-run media does not have journalists; it has co-conspirators.

The Russian people watched the parade, gawked at the weapons, heard Putin speak, and tuned in for Kremlin-dictated “special military operation” updates on state-run media. All of it clouds over Soviet Russia’s inhumane past. All of it washes over Russia’s military blunders and war crimes.

The American military has a lot of things going for us:

We don’t lose naval conflicts to non-naval foes. Our tank turrets stay on. We don’t strip appliances to repair military equipment. We use aircraft hangers, not car tires. We don’t regularly bomb our own territory. Pete Hegseth aside, we communicate in secure channels. But we simply cannot compete with the Russian lie.

Putin claimed repeatedly in the run-up to the 2022 full-scale invasion that Ukrainians and Russians were one people. One and the same. Same history. Just a border in between with no historic basis.

Trump did a copy-and-paste of Putin for Canada.

Russians responded to Putin with silence, indifference, or both. It was the response Putin hoped for, and the invasion moved forward. Russians who “discredited the military” were too late and too quiet. Putin squashed them like bugs.

Trump tried Putin’s same shit against Canada. But Americans responded differently. We protested, mocked the hell out of Trump, and we made sure Canadians know they’re pretty cool people.

We have a lot to protest under Trump. But we sent a clear message on Canada.

Now, due process in America hangs in the balance. The loss of rights for anyone in our country is a threat to us all. So, we will resist.