Russian President Vladimir Putin held his annual Victory Day parade on Moscow's Red Square Saturday — celebrating the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany — as a Trump-announced three-day ceasefire with Ukraine briefly quieted the front lines, Bloomberg Politics reports. The Kremlin had imposed intensified security measures ahead of the event in response to escalating Ukrainian drone attacks.
Read the play: Putin gets his parade, his symbolism, and a ceasefire he didn't negotiate — announced instead by the American president. That sequencing matters. Trump absorbs the diplomatic cost of pressuring Ukraine to stand down; Putin absorbs the optics win.
A three-day pause is not a peace process. It's a photo backdrop. The side that walks away from this weekend looking like a statesman — and it isn't Zelensky — is the side that controlled the calendar.