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.

Moscow's grand avenues, like every year in early May, were taken over by the growling of 80-year-old tanks and the smell of gasoline burned by military vehicles. At the turn of the month, Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Ukraine "cannot be held responsible" for whatever happens during Russian President Vladimir Putin's military spectacle,

Vladimir Putin welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday for talks in the Kremlin that Moscow hopes will provide a diplomatic boost for the Russian leader at a key moment in the war with Ukraine.

On the world stage, Putin aims to cast himself alongside Xi as a defender of the international order, and to demonstrate that years of Western sanctions have failed to isolate Russia.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a joint statement “further deepening” their partnership following talks in Moscow Thursday – a show of solidarity in the face of global uncertainties unleashed by US President Donald Trump’s “America First” diplomacy.