In his annual Victory Day speech on Russia’s main patriotic holiday on Tuesday, President Vladimir V. Putin largely repeated his usual grievances against Ukraine and its western allies, accusing them of “pursuing the dissolution and the destruction of our country”.

But his forceful tone — and explicit comparisons between the invasion of Ukraine and World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War — were likely to carry particular symbolism during what is a deeply emotive event for many Russians.

In a roughly 10-minute address in Moscow’s Red Square on Victory Day, which commemorates the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, Putin portrayed his war in Ukraine as a “sacred” struggle for the survival of the Russian state, signalling a willingness to continue the drawn-out conflict.

“A real war has been unleashed against our motherland again,” Putin said. “Battles that decide the fate of our motherland have always become all-encompassing, patriotic and sacred.”

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin has usually referred to it as a “special military operation”. Although this was not the first time he has called the conflict a “war”, the setting gave the acknowledgement added weight.

The rhetorical echoes of Russia’s all-encompassing, uncompromising struggle in World War II also marked a change from Putin’s initial justification of the Ukraine invasion, which he had said would be a limited, pre-emptive strike to neutralise what he falsely called a Nazi-controlled government in Kyiv.

Putin also used the Victory Day commemorations to present an image of international support for his invasion of Ukraine amid tightening Western sanctions against Russia. He greeted the Presidents of seven former Soviet republics who had travelled to Moscow for the event, saying that their nations had “fought together and won together” with Russia in World War II.

He also mentioned Russia’s most important international partner, China, praising its fight against “Japanese militarism” in World War II.

With many memorial events cancelled or scaled back because of security concerns, and the annual military parade in Moscow’s Red Square proceeding without any modern tanks, Russia’s military struggles in Ukraine shadowed the nation’s most important secular holiday amid concerns over a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine has stepped up attacks in Russian-occupied territory and even appeared to strike military installations within Russia, although it has strongly denied involvement in explosions over the Kremlin last week that Moscow called a terrorist attack.

As Russia’s setbacks continue to mount, so, too, have its strikes — the latest coming hours before Putin spoke, when a wave of cruise missiles targeted Kyiv, the fifth large-scale Russian aerial attack against the city this month. Loud explosions rang out over Kyiv as Ukrainian air defences intercepted the missiles, and no casualties or damage were immediately reported.

New York Times News Service and AP/PTI