May 9 will be a crucial day to know the direction and fate of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. But above all it will be the occasion for the triumph of rhetoric. The analyst of the Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) Stefano Stefanini is convinced of this, speaking with Adnkronos, he explains how Victory Day, during which Moscow celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany, in Russian psychology and in the construction that Putin has made of it, it will be a key date in which the Russian president “will announce either the end of the so-called ‘Special Operation’, and therefore the Russian victory, or, especially if in the meantime the losses, costs and difficulties, he will have to appeal to the patriotic soul and carry out an escalation in the rhetoric and in the mobilization of the population. It’s hard to say how far it will go, but 9 May is a date in which something will surely have to change ”. How the Kremlin will respond to the stalemate and how the war could evolve, “for now we cannot say – continues the former Italian ambassador to NATO and diplomatic adviser to Giorgio Napolitano at the Quirinale – since we do not know how operations in the Donbass are actually going. The impression is that the Russian advance is very slow and unable to break through the Ukrainian lines to rejoin operations in the south with those in the north by May 9. How much Putin wants to mobilize the entire nation, we will see. the word ‘total war’ may perhaps be exaggerated, as can calling millions of people to arms. The Russian president will probably say: ‘Just as we defeated Nazism alone in 1945, we are fighting the same war today in Ukraine.’ A historical falsification and rhetoric, of course, since today’s war is initiated by Russia for no real reason other than to take control of Ukraine. be the way to mobilize the nation after initially selling them the invasion of Ukraine as an operation at almost zero cost ”. “It is clear – adds Stefanini – that the comparison between the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany and what is happening now is risky and that it is not an easy communication operation to carry out. The Russians then fought tooth and nail, just as the Ukrainians are heroically doing in their defensive war today. Mariupol is what Stalingrad was then. The mystification, which began with the rhetoric of the special denazification operation, must now continue and be amplified, also because Russia has suffered a monstrous cost, both in terms of means and in human lives. Even if we cut the estimates of Russian losses reported by Ukraine and Britain in half, they remain a huge price for just over two months of war. Consider that in Afghanistan in almost 20 years the Americans have lost between 4 thousand and 5 thousand people “. (By Cristiano Camera)