From a bird’s eye view, Red Square looked like a communion of Russian patriotism this Friday. Thousands of people crowded onto the huge promenade for a macro concert to celebrate the first anniversary of the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, which had only been partially occupied by Russia since the start of the war. Dozens of Russian flags waved in the wind and from the stage, Kremlin singers urged people to chant nationalist slogans. However, at ground level the reality was different. Except for members of some patriotic organizations, practically no one wore patriotic symbols and all paraphernalia was distributed by the organizers. In addition, many of those present said they had been invited to the event by their universities and companies and were content to attend a free concert. The motto of the anniversary celebration was “One country, one family, one Russia”.
“Nothing, it’s nothing, I don’t like it,” answered with a serious expression a third-grader from Sinergiya University who was forced by his teachers to take part in the event. Around him, five companions agreed with this opinion with their heads slightly bowed, despite the presence of police officers and many strangers around them. Out of caution, none of them wanted to reveal their names.
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“We had to come, they brought us here,” he emphasized without hesitation when asked what they were doing there. Another friend stressed that “many” of those in attendance did not share the Kremlin’s patriotic fervor, and a third put his hands on his head and shouted, “Really?!” as he asked them how they did it in the middle of Red Square saw the situation. a year and a half later at the front. As they withdrew, they frowned and suggested that the war was going badly.
Putin decreed this week that September 30 would henceforth be the day of reunification of the new regions. On this day last year, in the Kremlin, the president signed the annexation of the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, areas that he does not fully control and where Kiev’s forces are now conducting a counteroffensive. Shortly before, four days of pseudo-referendums on integration with Russia were held in these areas, despite the bombings, intimidation by the occupying forces and the flight of much of the Ukrainian population from their homeland. A year later, Ukrainian forces continue their tough counteroffensive in the east and south to regain lost territory.
The Moscow Macro Concert was organized this Friday shortly after closing time. The Telegram news channel Mozhem Obyasnit (we can explain, with more than half a million followers) revealed alleged job offers from the organizers for about 600 rubles to participate as extras in the audience. Likewise, he said that some public companies have offered free transportation to the displaced employees.
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Participants of the concert that took place this Friday on Red Square in Moscow. MAXIM SHIPENKOV (EFE)
In any case, many other spectators enjoyed attending the patriotic macro concert. “It’s a fantastic party,” said Nikolai, a Muscovite in his 60s wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt. “They gave me the work permit and I came,” he admitted, before pointing out that he attended the event “to support his people,” when asked what he thought about the war in these regions one year after the proclamation of annexation continues. “I used to have Ukrainian acquaintances, but now I don’t have any anymore. “It used to be better,” he admitted.
Red Square was full of young people, especially students and members of youth organizations. One of the organizing groups, Mega Volontior, gave several tips on attending the concert on its website. Firstly, that the audience must be “preferably under 35 years old”, although “it could also be older”. The second and clearer indication that the Kremlin wanted everything under control was the etiquette code to avoid unpleasant symbols on the screen: “You do not need to bring any paraphernalia, everything will be handed to you by the organizers at this time.” “ the group added.
A few minutes after the festival started, many people left the place. Others didn’t even get in and just showed up at the turnstiles. “Our country is getting bigger,” said Marina, a middle-aged woman from Krasnodar who gave this journalist the ticket.
Some foreigners, especially students, also took part in the festival. Some young women from India chose not to “talk about politics” with this newspaper, although a Mexican student who preferred to remain anonymous did so. After two months in Russia, I was convinced that Moscow’s cause was justified. “War is nothing more than another form of foreign policy. All countries use war in one way or another, and it seems to me good to some extent that Russia is at war and not destabilizing other governments like other countries do. “It seems to me a position, if not peaceful, at least less hypocritical than that of other countries,” said this Data student, who was also convinced that Russia is an “ordered” state.
The event’s motto was “One Country, One Family, One Russia” and it was the fourth official pro-war concert since the invasion began in February 2022, although unlike the previous three, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not appear . in front of the public. The president did not attend this nationalist event because his agenda included a video conference to mark the opening of the Russia-Latin America Forum in Saint Petersburg. In his speech, he explained that Moscow and Latin American countries “traditionally have a lot in common in their views on international issues” and referred to Che Guevara as his supporter in Red Square.
Putin attended the first macro-concert of the war, held on the anniversary of the illegal annexation of Crimea on March 18, 2022, at Luzhniki Stadium, where he divided the country into “patriots” and “traitors.”
At the next event, on September 30 last year, the Kremlin celebrated the announcement of the illegal annexation of the four occupied Ukrainian zones on Red Square in a soulless concert that left the enthusiasm of one of the propagandists as a memory. “Fear, old world, devoid of true beauty, true faith, true wisdom, ruled by madmen, perverts and satanists. Be afraid, we have arrived! Goida! (it’s time, in Old Russian),” Ivan Oylobystin, a Russian ultra-nationalist filmmaker and former priest, said from the stage. The last concert was organized on February 22 on the occasion of Defender of the Fatherland Day.
The motto of the macro concert was criticized by some opponents as being reminiscent of the slogans of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. One of the protagonists of the event was Yaroslav Dronov, known by the stage name Shaman, who poured gasoline on the fire despite the Kremlin’s insistence that this was supposedly a fight against Nazism. The 31-year-old singer has released several ultra-patriotic songs in a style that imitates Nazism. One of his latest songs, My Struggle, was subtitled in German, like Hitler’s book of the same name; and another song, Us, recorded precisely on Red Square, shows in the video a black fur coat and an armband with the Russian flag, reminiscent of the style of the officers of the Third Reich.
While thousands of children watched the concert on Red Square, Putin signed a call to conscript 130,000 young people into military service. The law bans the deployment of recruits to the front and the Defense Ministry assured Friday that they would not fight in Ukraine. Young people from the occupied territories of Ukraine are also involved in the draft for military service, which takes place between October 1st and December 31st.
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