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IN TODAY’S EDITION
1️⃣ The two key lines from Putin’s Victory Day speech |
2️⃣ What to do in Paris this weekend |
3️⃣ Court case of the day |
Hi Intriguer. There are a few TV shows I just can’t watch because they’re too painfully familiar. One is Veep, the sitcom about a US vice president.
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In season 4, the veep herself (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) runs for office and emblazons her campaign bus with an amusingly contradictory slogan: “Continuity with Change”. For me, it captures how when leaders try to be all things to all people, they can end up not offering anything to anyone.
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Today’s briefing takes us to an unseasonably snowy Moscow, where Vladimir Putin gave his ‘Victory Day’ speech yesterday. He was trying to say different things to different audiences: to the West (back off), to his urbanite base (nothing to see here), and to his military (keep going).
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But while the resulting speech ended up saying little new, the surrounding pageantry still offered plenty of insights into how Putin now sees the world.
THE HEADLINES
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Netanyahu defiant after Biden’s Rafah warnings.
Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has declared “if we have to stand alone, we will stand alone”, a day after US President Joe Biden warned the US would again halt weapon supplies if Israel pushes ahead in Rafah. Netanyahu’s video message came as negotiators left talks in Cairo without a ceasefire deal. Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly is set today (Friday) to vote in favour of a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member. Full membership would require approval at the UN Security Council (the US vetoed an earlier bid there last month).
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Israel qualifies for Eurovision final despite protests.
Viewers at home have voted Israel through to Saturday’s final of the Eurovision song contest, despite protests in host country Sweden over Israel’s actions in Gaza. The favourites to win on Saturday are Ireland, Switzerland, Ukraine or Croatia (probably Croatia).
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Brazil flood death toll passes 107.
At least 134 people are still missing and 165,000 have been displaced as heavy rains and flooding continue in southern Brazil. Facing the worst natural disaster ever to hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul, local authorities are trying to get aid to residents through ruined infrastructure before more storms hit. Brazil’s government has announced $10B for reconstruction, while the continent’s key development bank – plus the Pope, Elon Musk, and others – are offering help.
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Apple apologises over iPad ad.
The US tech giant has issued a rare apology for a commercial touting its newest (and thinnest) iPad. We’re not marketing gurus, but the ad (showing creative tools being crushed into an iPad) presumably aimed to show how the thin gadget still packs a creative punch. But Hugh Grant described it as the “destruction of the human experience”, while Greece’s former finance minister said the ad revealed CEO Tim Cook’s “techno-feudal urge to crush everything of cultural value in his quest for power”. 😦
TOP STORY
The two key lines from Putin’s Victory Day speech
Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s Red Square yesterday (Thursday).
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Cue another Putin speech! The Russian leader addressed his nation on ‘Victory Day’ yesterday (Thursday) – it’s a key public holiday commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.
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Let’s paint you a picture: Moscow awoke to a flurry of snow as it recorded its coldest May 9th in decades. Nine foreign dignitaries then emerged in Red Square: the heads of ex-Soviet republics Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, plus the leaders of Moscow-friendly Cuba, Laos, and Guinea-Bissau.
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They were there to join Putin as he watched a seven-minute military parade rumble past (and roar overhead). It was similar in size to last year’s scaled-back version, and again featured a single tank: the WWII-era T34 which was, it turns out, first developed in Ukraine (now a graveyard for 3,000 Russian tanks).
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Putin then took the podium and kicked off his six-minute remarks with the traditional “dear veterans”, before rehearsing some familiar lines – labelling his foes “Nazis”, hinting at his nuclear arsenal, and recalling the Soviet Union’s massive WWII losses (some 8.7 million troops and 19 million civilians).
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But there were two main lines that jumped out at us.
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“Today, we are witnessing attempts to distort the truth about World War II”
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This was Putin’s opening point. And we’re not seeking to be sassy here when we flag that Putin then went on to, well, distort the truth about WWII. For example, he claimed that “virtually all of Europe worked to support the Nazi war machine” in WWII. It’s unclear if he was referring to the fact that, by the time Hitler turned on Stalin, much of Europe was already under Nazi occupation.
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And that reminds us: Putin of course made no mention of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which saw the USSR partner with the Nazis and help them invade Poland.
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Regardless, the above was one of several lines almost seeking to cast his invasion of Ukraine as a continuation of WWII. And he needed that framing because of what came next…
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“Russia is now going through a difficult, watershed moment of its history”
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Popular support for Putin’s war depends in part on the ability of Russian urbanites to keep pretending it’s not happening. But that gets tougher as casualty numbers (now 400,000+) keep growing by around 900 per day. So, elliptical lines like the above are a balancing act: a nod to reality without highlighting it.
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Putin then wrapped it up with a minute of silence, just as the snowfall resumed.
INTRIGUE’S TAKE
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So what does Putin’s speech tell us? It was interesting to see him give a brief WWII shout-out for neighbouring China, whose current economic lifeline is helping sustain his war. But most insights were behind the podium.
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The audience didn’t include, for example, the leader of Armenia, even though Pashinyan himself was in Moscow the night before for a regional summit. It’s a reminder of how deep the rupture is with Putin’s erstwhile ally, who’s now actively leaning West.
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And the audience did include the governor of Moldova’s Gagauzia region, who’s facing charges of taking $2.4M in illicit cash from Russia. Her presence is a reminder of Russia’s efforts to destabilise a pro-EU Moldova.
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The audience also included (per exiled Russian media) Chalym Chuldum-ool and Boris Dudko. They were among Russia’s occupying troops in Ukraine’s Bucha and Yahidne respectively, leaving behind evidence of serious war crimes when they fled in 2022. Yet they were both in seats of honour, right behind Putin (wearing the red / blue caps in the image above). It’s a reminder of how differently Putin sees – or wants to see – his war.
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So our sense overall? Among the words, the nine foreign dignitaries, the parade, the snowflakes, and the soldiers roaming around Red Square with anti-drone weapons, this year’s Putin feels slightly recovered, slightly less isolated, slightly more resentful, and slightly more paranoid.
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Also worth noting:
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The same day over in Lithuania’s capital of Vilnius, EU leader Ursula von der Leyen marked the 20th anniversary of Lithuania’s accession to the EU. Her speech included this line: “For many years, Lithuania warned Europe about the dangers of Russia. After 2014, you told us that Putin would simply not stop. And Europe should have listened.”
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Ukraine officially moved its own WWII commemoration a day earlier last year, aligning with most European countries. This year (Wednesday), Ukraine announced plans for electricity rationing after recent Russian attacks on the country’s infrastructure.
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Putin was sworn into his next six-year term as president on Tuesday.
SPECIAL EDITIONS, STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX
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MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…
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🇨🇳 China: Import and export figures returned to growth for the month of April, meeting forecasts and injecting a dash of optimism to China’s recovery. But there are doubts around the strength of those numbers, which partly reflect a base effect (exports plunged 7.5% back in March).
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🇳🇱 Netherlands: Authorities arrested 32 people at the University of Amsterdam on Wednesday amidst clashes between pro-Palestinian protestors and police. The prime minister, Mark Rutte, tweeted, “Demonstrations are allowed. Always. But using violence against the police and causing destruction is never allowed. Stop that!”
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🇹🇭 Thailand: Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has vowed to re-criminalise cannabis before the end of the year, triggering an outcry from the country’s growing cannabis sector. Thailand became the first Southeast Asian nation to decriminalise the substance back in 2022.
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🇳🇮 Nicaragua: Managua has cancelled a concession to a China-based investor to build a $50B canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific. It was pitched as a rival to the Panama Canal, but construction never got going due to the sheer scale of the project plus staunch community opposition.
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🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia: An exiled Saudi intelligence officer has told the BBC that Riyadh authorised the use of lethal force to evict villagers on land slated for the crown prince’s futuristic city in the desert. The project, named Neom, has reportedly been scaled back, with around 2.4km of the planned 170km now due for completion by 2030.
EXTRA INTRIGUE
Some recommendations from Team Intrigue if you’re lucky enough to be in 🇫🇷 Paris this weekend
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Buy: Pick up some customised lip gloss at Officine Universelle Buly in Le Marais, and your family and friends will love you forever.
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Eat: Channel your inner flapper with a table at the 20th Century’s most famous restaurant, Maxim’s.
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Explore: If you’ve got more (much more) time, schlep up the Pyrenees to Tourmalet Pass, where President Macron hosted Xi Jinping this week (though the restaurant where they had their power-lunch is usually closed until early June).
COURT CASE OF THE DAY
WWII passenger ship the SS Tilawa was sunk by a Japanese submarine while transporting South African gold. Credits: FT.
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The UK Supreme Court has ruled that South Africa doesn’t owe a dime to the maritime retrieval company that recovered its $43M in silver bars from a WWII shipwreck.
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South Africa bought the 2,364 silver bars from India in 1942, but a Japanese submarine then torpedoed the ship that was delivering them, sending it to the bottom of the Indian Ocean. 75 years later in 2017, Argentum Exploration found the precious cargo and tried to claim salvage rights, but the British court has now sided with South Africa.
FRIDAY QUIZ
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Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa on this day in 1994 after the end of apartheid.
1) Which of the following isiXhosa words was *not* used as a name for Nelson Mandela? |
2) From which prison was Nelson Mandela freed in 1990? |
3) What did Mandela wear to court in 1962?(he was facing charges of leaving the country without permission and inciting workers to strike)
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