Why Putin's Victory Day cult is failing Russia's war veterans (opens in new tab)

Russia will celebrate Victory Day on May 9 — the most sacred date in its political calendar and the centerpiece of a state-built cult of war. Over more than two decades of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule, the Soviet memory of World War II has moved far beyond commemoration, with its complexities and crimes erased in favor of a simplified, heroic narrative that has also been weaponized — the Kremlin has used the language of World War II to frame its enemies, above all Ukraine, as "Nazis,