Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday at Moscow's Red Square Victory Day parade that the world was at a "turning point" and claimed a "war" had been unleashed against Russia.

He vowed victory and said Russia's future "rests on" its soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

The traditional Soviet-style event celebrating Moscow's victory over the Nazis took place amid security fears, 15 months into Russia's Ukraine offensive.

"Today civilisation is again at a decisive turning point," Putin said at the parade, which included elderly veterans and soldiers from Russia's Ukraine campaign.

"A war has been unleashed against our motherland," he claimed.

He called for Russia to be victorious: "For Russia, for our armed forces, for victory! Hurrah!"

The Russian leader has increasingly portrayed the campaign in Ukraine as an existential conflict, which he says the West has escalated by supporting the Ukrainian government.

Putin told soldiers taking part in Moscow's Ukraine campaign, several hundreds of whom were present at the Red Square parade, that "the whole country is with you." 

"There is nothing more important now than your combat effort," he said.

"The security of the country rests on you today, the future of our statehood and our people depend on you."

Putin also railed against "Western globalist elites", accusing them of sowing conflicts and "coups" around the world.

"Their goal, and there is nothing new here, is to achieve the collapse and destruction of our country," he said.

The longtime Russian leader vowed that Moscow would overcome this. 

"But we have rebuffed international terrorism, we will protect the people of (eastern Ukraine's) Donbas, we will ensure our security," he said.

This appeared to be a reference to an unprecedented series of attacks on Russian soil in the run-up to the Victory Day parade, a central event under Putin's rule. 

Wagner boss says Russian state unable to defend the country 

Meanwhile, the head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin on Tuesday questioned the Kremlin's ability to defend the country as Ukraine prepares for a spring offensive.

"Why is the state not able to defend its country?" Prigozhin said in a scathing video, adding that Ukraine was hitting Russian border regions "successfully". 

He said Russian soldiers were "fleeing" the army because the defence ministry was "instead of fighting, scheming all the time." 

 He accused Moscow's top generals of trying to deceive President Vladimir Putin over the Kremlin's Ukraine campaign.

"If all the tasks are being carried out in such a way as to deceive the commander-in-chief (Putin), then either he will rip your arse or the Russian people will, who will be angry that the war is lost," Prigozhin said.

He also accused a Russian military unit of having fled its positions near Bakhmut in east Ukraine, now the epicentre of fighting.

"Today one of the units of the defence ministry fled from one of our flanks .. exposing the front," Prigozhin said, repeating a vow that his Wagner group will leave Bakhmut if the Russian military does not supply more ammunition.

 

 

© Agence France-Presse