This is The Guardian.

Today, decoding Vladimir Putin's victory-day speech

and what it says about the future of the war in Ukraine.

The Guardian

So at 10 a.m. on the dot, the clocks around Red Square chime,

all the delegations, all the kind of high-level officials are in their seats,

and it's at that moment that all the troops are kind of ready on Red Square and the parade begins.

On Monday morning, the eyes of the world were fixed on Moscow for the country's annual victory-day parade,

even in ordinary years, a dramatic celebration of Russia's military prowess,

and this isn't an ordinary year.

So in Rye's Sergei Shoglu, he's the head of the Russian Defense Ministry,

standing in a convertible. He received the troops and he drives by one by one,

passed all these different divisions and all these different troop groupings.

And he says, you know, I congratulate you with the victory over Nazi Germany and World War II,

and everybody replies, you know,

URA!

Kind of, it's a cheer about, you know, this moment that's so important for so many Russians.

And after that, Sergei Shoglu drives up to Vladimir Putin and Putin stands up and delivers a speech.

This is a speech that he gives every year, but this year it feels like Vladimir Putin has a decision to make.

In many ways, he has to figure out what to do with this war, the most important decision of his entire presidency,

and he needs to kind of announce in front of the country what is going to happen in the next phase of this war.

So the speech begins by him saying, dear officers and privates and everybody else who's in the army,

...