Even those Russians that harbor hesitations about Putin’s policies, however, see Victory Day, and the incredible sacrifices it represents, as sacrosanct, and they are unlikely to view the decision by Western leaders to boycott this important celebration as an understandable outcome of the conflict in Ukraine. As high as Putin’s poll numbers are at the moment, there are those in Russia who are concerned about what Russia’s current confrontational stance vis-à-vis the West is doing to Russia’s standing in the world, as well as its economic future. It is a mistake because, as President Clinton emphasized 20 years ago, Victory Day is about more than our current relationship with the man in charge in the Kremlin. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific. However, Merkel and Komorowski are not in the same situation, and their non-attendance is a mistake. The last thing he and his party need, especially as he prepares to fight with Congress on a proposed nuclear deal with Iran, is another reason to be portrayed as soft on America’s adversaries in the international arena. With the presidential election of 2016 already beginning to dominate the American media and political landscape, neither he, even as a post-midterm second term president, nor the Democratic Party, want the images of him standing next to Putin on Red Square as Russian soldiers march by to be broadcast on CNN or Fox News. It is very difficult to imagine Obama attending, largely for reason of domestic American politics. President Barack Obama, French President François Hollande, German Chancellor Merkel, and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski have chosen not to attend the Victory Day celebrations as a consequence. He will likely associate the United States and its European allies, obliquely or directly, with Nazi Germany in that context. Putin will almost certainly use the occasion, as he has many times in the past, to paint Russia as the world’s heroic bastion of resistance against the forces of world domination.
Today we are faced with an even more difficult situation in which Russia has seized the territory of another sovereign country, and the reluctance of Western leaders to allow President Vladimir Putin to have his shining moment in the sun on the 70th anniversary of Victory Day is understandable. As Clinton emphasized then, he had chosen to visit Moscow for the occasion to honor the sacrifices of the Russian people, not as a favor to the Russian president. But Clinton, along with the British prime minister, French president, and German chancellor, all attended a parade of World War II veterans through Red Square, and they were all present afterwards at a reception in the main Kremlin palace. President Bill Clinton pronounced those words in Moscow on the 50th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany to Soviet forces on May 9, 1945.Īt the time, Russia was fighting a brutal war – then in Chechnya – and Western leaders, including Clinton, did not attend the military parade in order to send a message to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. “I have come here on behalf of all the people of the United States to express our deep gratitude for all that you gave and all that you lost to defeat the forces of fascism.” Twenty years ago, U.S.