Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Victory day military parade. Moscow, Red Square, May 9, 2022. Screenshot from the Афиша Москвы YouTube channel. Fair use. On April 24, 2022, Tigran Keosayan, a television host and one of the most prominent faces of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, released a video calling the Kazakhs “cunning-asses” (хитрожопые) for “canceling” the Victory Day parade, threatening Kazakhstan and other former-Soviet states with a Ukraine-like scenario. Keosayan, along with his wife Margarita Simonyan, the head of Russia’s state-owned conglomerate RT (formerly Russia Today), were instrumental in implementing Russian militaristic propaganda, and are under restrictive sanctions by the European Union for “actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.” Both of the mouthpieces of Putin’s regime also had dubious commercial gains through PR projects and movie production, involving in their corruptive schemes prominent figures from the presidential administration, as was revealed by the Navalny team. Historically, Victory Day, on May 9, which commemorates the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, was not even a holiday in the Soviet Union, let alone one celebrated by a parade — the first ever military parade of the post-war era was held only in 1965. It was the Putin regime that systematically expropriated Victory Day into governmental policies, gradually making it the core of the state propaganda. The past five years in a row Victory day was the most popular holiday among Russians, ahead of New Year and Easter. Interestingly, it was New Year that Stalin designated a holiday instead of Victory Day in 1947. From the ideological point of view, the victory over Nazi Germany turned into one of the most influential and universal tools of Putin’s rule, as it became instrumental in legitimizing the regime, suppressing political dissent, and pursuing an aggressive foreign policy, including the war in Ukraine. Since current Russian propaganda massively relies on broad, multichannel dissemination and falsehood, Victory Day plays an important role in it. In this regard, Putin’s last Victory Day parade speech from May 9, 2022, was full of associations with the fight against Nazism, coming back and forth from the World War II to “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, who “the US and their minor companions count on.” Over time, the concept of victory recreated in Putin’s Russia would gradually become more Russocentric, often by ignoring the contribution of the Allied Powers contribution to the victory, and even introducing a law that prohibits the denial of the decisive role Soviet people played in defeating Nazi Germany, while terms like “traitors” and “Russophobia” started being incorporated into his Victory Day speeches. On May 9, 2021, the Russian president stated that “in the most difficult times of the war, at the most decisive battles that defined the outcome of the fight against fascism, our nation was alone.” As the celebrations became more politicized, prioritizing the current state of affairs over the past, Putin stopped congratulating the heads of states of Ukraine and Georgia on Victory Day, while over time fewer states were willing to be associated with Putin’s Victory Day celebrations. Thus, the Tajik President Emomali Rahmon became the only foreign leader to attend the Victory Day parade in Moscow on May 9, 2021, while the Victory Day parade of 2020 that was postponed to June 24, 2020, due to COVID-19 considerations, was attended only by the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, as well as the heads of the Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the breakaway provinces of Georgia. Needless to say that no foreign leader visited the Victory day parade in Moscow in 2022. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at the Victory Day celebrations. Moscow, Kremlin, May 9, 2021. Screenshot from the ВМЕСТЕ-РФ YouTube channel. Fair use. In mid-April 2022, the Kazakh Ministry of Defense announced that there would be no military parade on Victory Day, and the celebrations would be confined to “military-patriotic events” instead, citing the need to save budgetary funds and prioritize other tasks, despite the 30th anniversary of the Kazakh Defense Forces. Moreover, the so-called Immortal Regiment (Бессмертный полк), the marches to commemorate war veterans, were canceled in some regions of Kazakhstan, sometimes due to a growing negative response, as was the case in Aktau in western Kazakhstan. Before the events, the Immortal Regiment was officially renamed “Reverence for the Heroes” (Батырларға тағзым).