Pristine lines of goose-stepping soldiers, gleaming military hardware, stirring music - and President Putin invoking the glorious past of the Soviet Union's triumph over Nazi Germany.

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Usually this is the annual display of super power nostalgia. But this year it is also supposed to justify what the Russian leader still refuses to call a war in a country he still refuses to call by name. But the reality of that war in Ukraine is far from victorious and even the fly past of the Russian air force was absent this year, apparently because of bad weather.

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