Staying Away From Moscow’s Victory Day Parade

Staying Away From Moscow’s Victory Day Parade

Posted by: Judy Dempsey | Monday, May 4, 2015 | http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=59974&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvKXNZKXonjHpfsX57uQsW6Sg38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YIGRcR0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYTLB2t60MWA%3D%3D

Every year on May 9, Russia celebrates Victory Day, the anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany, with a military parade in Moscow. Twice—in 1995 and in 2005—Western leaders attended. Then, there was a sense of hope for a new relationship between the West and Russia.
But the West did not have a unanimous view of the parades. Nor, indeed, was the West unanimous that its relationship with Russia would be based on genuine cooperation—perhaps even on shared values.
Old Europe, or Western Europe, perceived the parades as a celebration to mark the end of Nazism and fascism. The Red Army’s march into Berlin in 1945 ended a horrific and cataclysmic era of European history.
It is estimated that about 36.5 million Europeans died between 1939 and 1945. Nearly half that number consisted of noncombatant civilians. Nazism managed to destroy Europe’s rich and old Judeo-Christian heritage, despite attempts after 1945 to build Jewish communities and life in some parts of Europe. Over 5.7 million Jews were sent to the Nazi death camps. In the Soviet Union, an estimated 16 million people died, half of whom were soldiers.http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=59974&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvKXNZKXonjHpfsX57uQsW6Sg38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YIGRcR0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYTLB2t60MWA%3D%3D