Vital four weeks as Putin scrambles for any small victory in Ukraine

Michael Clarke, the former director general of Royal United Services Institute, the security think tank, said it would be impossible to ignore the significance of Victory Day this year given Putin’s claims he wants to “denazify” Ukraine. “He’s casting the Ukraine crisis as another Great Patriotic War for the soul and the future of Russia itself,” Clarke said. “It’s bizarre and it’s ridiculous but you can’t say that the majority of Russians disbelieve him at the moment.”