Eighty-one years ago, the Soviet Union celebrated the end of the bloodiest war in human history. Today, Russia still marches in Red Square on the same date — but this time, the enemy isn’t Berlin. It’s a grinding, grinding war that nobody can quite finish.
On May 9th, 2026, Moscow held its annual Victory Day parade on Red Square. President Putin attended and delivered a speech — as he always does on this day. Military hardware rolled through the square: T-14 Armata tanks, missile systems, rows of goose-stepping soldiers. Saint Basil’s Cathedral stood behind it all, its colorful domes unchanged, indifferent to history repeating itself.
The interesting part isn’t the parade. It’s what happened the day before.
On May 8th, Russian President’s aide Ushakov announced that Russia had agreed to a US-proposed ceasefire extension through May 11th — and would exchange 1,000 prisoners with Ukraine in the process. Ukrainian President Zelensky, for his part, issued an explicit order: the Red Square parade would not be a Ukrainian target. Think about that for a second. One side holds a military parade in its capital. The other side formally pledges not to attack it. And everyone calls this progress.
That’s where we are. The war grinds on — not because either side is winning, but because neither side has figured out how to stop. The ceasefire extensions keep coming, the prisoner swaps keep happening, and the parades keep marching. Nobody’s calling it peace. Nobody’s calling it victory either.
A few other things worth noting:
- The US reportedly told Germany it plans to pull 5,000 troops from the country, with Poland as a possible destination. Trump’s Pentagon, apparently, still operates on a “the one who pays the most gets the bases” logic.
- The UK had local elections on May 8th. The governing Labour Party took a beating. PM Starmer is being urged to resign within a year by members of his own party. He’s apparently planning a big policy announcement to try to turn things around — because nothing says “we’ve got this” like a last-minute rebranding campaign.
- The US CDC upgraded its response to a Hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship Hondius to Level 3 (its lowest emergency tier) on May 8th. Three people have died. If you needed another reason to never set foot on a cruise ship, there it is.
The bigger story here is actually the one nobody’s writing headlines about: the US-Russia-Ukraine triangle is doing something strange. Trump proposed the ceasefire extension, Russia agreed, Ukraine went along with it. That’s three parties who genuinely hate each other, actually coordinating on something — even if that something is just “let’s stop shooting for 48 more hours.” Not exactly a peace treaty. But it’s not nothing either.
Whether this is the beginning of a real negotiation or just another pause before the next round of artillery exchanges remains to be seen. But for one day, Red Square got its parade, Zelensky kept his word, and 1,000 prisoners will go home to their families.
Small mercies. We’ll take them.