Ukrainian war, sources: Putin wants to save Victory parade, withdrawal hypothesis at the end of April

May 9: this is the date in Moscow that would begin to look at as a possible indication for the conclusion of the Russian “special military operation” against Ukraine. According to Adnkronos from Russian sources, there is a “reasonable hope” that Vladimir Putin – who today celebrated the eighth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, whose inhabitants “in those difficult weeks showed courage and patriotism against the neo-Nazis “he said at the time – may have” an interest in bringing the troops back by the end of April “. In order to be able to celebrate in Red Square, on the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, also the ‘victory’ in Ukraine, celebrating the “successes of the heroic Russian military”. In Moscow circles, therefore, the hope of being able to put an end to the conflict by that date would grow. “Being on 9 May in the middle of the war – the reasoning is – would be a bad image” for the Kremlin leader, already in great difficulty due to an advance that continues to trudge and which, according to American intelligence sources, has so far cost the life of at least 7 thousand Russian soldiers already. Bringing the military back home by the end of April would allow Putin to present himself at the parade on Red Square – a traditional muscular display of Russian power, which for years the most important foreign leaders, primarily Westerners, had participated in – claiming “the success or the alleged success “in the operation against Kiev. The objective of which, he repeated yesterday, is not the occupation of the country but its ‘denazification and demilitarization’. 9 May could therefore be, in the mind of the Kremlin leader, a new day of “triumph of patriotism” as he himself defined the parade eight years ago, after the annexation of Crimea, when he stressed the importance of “being faithful to the motherland and defending one’s interests”.