At a massive military parade to mark the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in WW2, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his nation’s invasion of Ukraine was provoked by the West. There were fears that Putin would use ‘Victory Day’ to ramp up the war – or declare victory in the conflict. That didn’t happen, but Putin told his troops assembled in Moscow’s Red Square that they were fighting for Russia’s future against external aggression. “In Kyiv, they were saying they might get nuclear weapons and NATO started exploring the lands close to us and that became an obvious threat to our country and our borders,” Putin said. UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said it was Putin’s attempt to intimidate the world. “Really, what Putin wants is the world to be awed by the ongoing memorial to militarism,” he said. In his own Victory Day speech, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was replicating Nazi atrocities.