Donation Report. April 2026

How often have you seen massive military parades?
The kind with thousands of marching troops and hundreds of pieces of military hardware—tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft systems, multiple rocket launchers, and those especially terrifying intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) rolling by on 16-wheel trucks.

You’ve probably only seen them on TV or in historical documentaries.
What kind of countries do you associate those parades with? Right! North Korea or Russia!
Places where small men feel the need to project power and compensate for their own insecurities against a backdrop of tons of weaponry and soldiers.

And do you know whose victory he’ll be celebrating?
The russian victory. According to russia, the russians won that war. Not Allies.
There were no Studebakers or American canned meat. There was no metal, no gasoline, no locomotives, no train cars, no millions of pairs of army boots.
And putin, acting as the heir to that legacy, leads this victory, practically claiming it for himself.

I actually started elementary school back in the USSR, and even my brain was wired to believe that WWII actually lasted from 1941 to 1945 and was called the "Great Patriotic War."
And that it started with a treacherous German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.
Meaning, whatever happened before June 22, 1941, didn't really matter.
Well, I won't bore you with lessons in alternative history, where there were no secret pacts between Hitler and Stalin, no russian invasion of Finland, no American Lend-Lease program saving their hides, and so on.
Long story short, russian textbooks teach that they were innocent as lambs, that the evil, deceitful Germans attacked them, and that the russians won the war entirely by themselves, without anyone's help, saving other nations in the process.

Therefore, in the russian mindset—especially under Putin—Victory Day is the most important holiday of all, spearheaded by Putin himself.
It’s his sacred ritual to legitimize himself as the heir, the military leader, the commander, the savior. Where there is victory, there is Putin.

It’s not just a historical date; it’s the foundation upon which russia’s modern, militarized national identity is built.

Associating themselves with the victors over "absolute evil" (Nazism) creates an image of russia as a country that is permanently on the "right side of history."
As the supposed "victor," it gives them the perceived right to justify their aggressive actions, and to accuse, brand, and persecute their opponents.

Huge parades featuring nuclear missiles are meant to show that russia doesn't just "remember," but that they "can do it again."
The 1945 victory is used as proof of russia's invincibility, both today and in the future.

To sum it up: For Putin, Victory Day is a way to graft the triumphs of the past onto his current agenda.
If the country is a victor, and he is its leader, then his decisions are automatically seen as part of that "victorious path."

The funny thing is, this year parades have been canceled in dozens of cities, and even in Moscow, there will be only marching soldiers and some aircraft flying overhead.
There won't be any military vehicles in the parade!!!! (I wonder why... haha).

Anyway, this is the single most important event for him.
Putin unilaterally declares a truce, a ceasefire, just for his legitimization ritual.

For the sake of this parade, Putin even calls Trump, asking him to pressure Zelensky so that Ukraine joins the ceasefire. Can you imagine that? 

But then things got even more interesting.

Zelensky announced his own ceasefire two days earlier, basically saying, "If you don't want to shoot on May 8th and 9th, let's not shoot on May 6th and 7th either. Every single day without killings is an achievement."
And right there, Putin walked into a trap where every way out looks bad.

• If he agrees, that’s a 4-day ceasefire, and how could the "Great Putin" take orders from Zelensky, whom he calls a "petty comedian, neo-Nazi, and drug addict"? In his gangster circles, taking orders is a show of weakness.
• If he doesn’t agree, he risks looking like a weakling to the whole world if live TV catches footage of his soldiers scattering during the parade, and Putin himself running for cover under an attack by Ukrainian drones.

The Great Leader of the Nation cannot appear weak. When the alpha of the pack gets weak, the pack eats him alive.
So, Putin stripped his parade down to the bare minimum and pulled air defense systems into Moscow from all over russia.

The BBC and the media outlet Mediazona keep a name-by-name list of dead Russians. (https://200.zona.media/)

That means journalists actually sit there scouring social media, messaging apps, and online groups for obituaries or news of casualties.
For example: someone posts about the death of their father, brother, or fellow soldier, complete with photos, dates, and other details.
The journalists take that name and add it to the registry.

And that list only includes those whose deaths were posted about publicly.
Now imagine how many dead haven't been written about, how many are simply listed as missing in action. Journalists estimate the real death toll for russians is somewhere around 400,000 to 500,000.
Add in the wounded, and total casualties

Just think about those catastrophic numbers for a second!!!!
Look at how many people Putin has already killed just to stroke his own ego!
Putin’s reputation as a military leader and the heir to the WWII victors is far more important to him than all those lost lives!
And he has no intention of stopping, because nobody has any use for a weak leader.
So, Putin is perfectly willing to trade millions of russian lives just to keep his throne.

Maybe we wouldn't even care what the Russians are doing to themselves.
If only it didn't affect us.
We are being forced to lose our absolute best people, just so an old KGB man can keep trying to validate his own ego.

Ukrainian losses are also catastrophic. Even though the Ukrainians didn't want this war.e