‘Like celebrating Christmas in April’: Putin’s plans for coronavirus-delayed Victory Day spark bemusement

This coming Wednesday, Russia will mark victory over fascist Germany with a rescheduled military parade on Moscow’s Red Square.

The annual ritual, usually held on 9 May, is the most revered date in Russia’s national calendar. Alongside space, literature and the federation’s vast territory, the triumph in the “Great Patriotic War” is seen as the country’s defining achievement, one that makes its citizens most proud.

This year, the 75th anniversary of victory was geared to be an especially significant moment. It was to be the last time that a large number of veterans will be alive to witness a major milestone. It was a moment for Mr Putin to come in from the geopolitical cold, by hosting a long list of foreign VIPs. It was also seen as a way for the Kremlin to prop up support for Mr Putin in a vote on constitutional amendments, strategically scheduled a fortnight ahead of the parade.

But then nature intervened, turning the planned epic narrative into a Shakespearean tragedy.

Just as preparations were being stepped up for the vote and parade, Russian wards began filling with suspected Covid-19 pneumonia patients. As much as Kremlin officials insisted the country’s superior preparation meant they could avoid a pandemic, eventually they accepted the inevitable and embraced medical authoritarianism instead.

With Moscow implementing one of the harshest lockdowns in the world, most observers believed neither showcase event would be possible this side of summer. But authorities surprised everyone at the end of May by abruptly rescheduling Victory Day for 24 June, and the constitutional vote for a week later.

In early June, even more unexpectedly, the authorities cancelled almost all Covid-19 restrictions. According to several government sources quoted in Russian media, the decision to end quarantine restrictions was directly linked to the Kremlin’s grand plans. Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, was reportedly very reluctant to relax restrictions so soon.

The prospect of a Victory Day parade and vote in the middle of a pandemic has created many contradictions. Yes, the Moscow parade will go ahead, but local residents are being told not to watch. Yes, war veterans can watch, but only after they have been quarantined for two weeks – lest they infect the president. Yes, the president will get his day in the sun, but it won’t be anything like the day he once dreamed about.

Mr Putin will, of course, preside over the usual batch of shiny new weapons. This year: new APCs, tanks, mining machines, a “mobile hotel” for soldiers manning strategic arms, and modifications of the Pantsir and Tornado rocket systems will roll over the cobbles of Red Square. Besides Russian forces, troops from 19 other countries including India and China will also be taking part.

But the central podium will be missing the foreign dignitaries and international recognition that Mr Putin had been hoping for. For President Macron and Chancellor Merkel, it was a matter of cancelling. In the case of the British government, which had been agonising over the invitation given ongoing post-Skripal tensions, the pandemic offered a convenient way to avoid making any decision.

The rescheduled parade has also created a certain cognitive dissonance in the minds of those watching from home. Victory Day on 9 May is a firm fixture in the calendar, coming at the end of several often tipsy days of national holidays. Now, Russians are being asked to reset their internal clocks after two months of sitting at home. And that feels strange.

“It’s like asking people to celebrate Christmas in April,” says Yuri Saprykin, a prominent author and cultural commentator. Russians are less discombobulated with the pandemic as they are with its economic consequences, he adds. “The government asked people to stay at home but didn’t help them financially, and now is seen spending huge sums rolling tanks across Red Square when the rationale for doing so has long disappeared. Why? Who is this whole charade for?”

A new survey published this week suggested most Russians felt either bemused or angered by the Kremlin’s decision-making. The poll not only indicated an overwhelming majority (72 per cent) of Russians disagreed with the idea to hold a parade in the middle of a pandemic, it suggested more than half believed information about the war was distorted by state media. Most remarkably, opposition to the government’s strategy was strongest in the 75-plus group, who are usually loyal to the president. Eighty-nine per cent of this cohort described the parade as a mistake.

According to Sergei Belanovsky, the sociologist who ran the poll, the results should make worrying reading for the Kremlin. They seem to show the end of the so-called “Putin majority”, he suggests, referring to the part of the population remaining loyal to the president no matter what. Such is the shocking nature of the results, some Kremlin-friendly analysts have doubted the validity of Mr Belanovsky’s sample. But the sociologist has a strong record in polling, and was the first among his peers to predict the protest uptick of 2011-12.

Mr Saprykin says he feels it is unlikely the fallout from the rearranged Victory Day will prove a political breakthrough in its own right. For most Russians, he says, disappointment with the Kremlin’s approach will “reinforce the impression of a president cut off from real life, living in his own world”. But a serious secondary spike of infections following the constitutional vote between 25 June and 1 July could well have more long-term consequences.

“Sending people to election booths in the middle of a pandemic, with the aim of keeping an out-of-touch president in power, well, that is not a great look,” he says.

Some medical professionals across the country are already ringing warning bells. While the virus seems to have peaked in Moscow, the epidemic started much later elsewhere. In many regions, infection curves are still resolutely on an upward trajectory, testing already creaking infrastructure.

On Friday, Viktoria Adonyeva, the chief infection specialist of the Oryol region in central Russia, declared she had no way of dealing with the expected increase in numbers in July.

“I’ve got 20 beds left in one hospital, and I’m closing that one today,” she said. “Let people vote if they want to, but they should also understand we don’t have any hospital beds left.”

Soon after making the comments, Ms Adonyeva was summoned to the local prosecutor’s office.