Victory Day, celebrated on May 9, is Russia’s most important secular holiday, reflecting its wartime sacrifice. But it’s also used by the Kremlin to bolster patriotism and regain the superpower prestige it lost when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Russia marked the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two with a major military parade that went off without any reports of Ukrainian attacks despite three years of devastating war.