Vladimir Putin Reportedly Hopes To Win In Eastern Ukraine By May 9 For Moscow’s Victory Day Parade

US officials revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to be able to celebrate success in eastern Ukraine on Victory Day on May 9. The holiday when the Russian military traditionally parade in Red Square, marks the Nazi surrender in World War II.

The Times reported that the officials said it is imperative for a battlefield victory to coincide with the occasion explains the shift of Russian troops to focus on the eastern Donbas area of Ukraine. They are also concentrating on the land corridor along the southeastern border of Ukraine instead of Kyiv region.

Putin probably thinks that a battlefield win in the Donbas region is more realistic as more of the existing Ukrainian population there is pro-Russian, according to Daily Mail. The relocation of Russian troops, as per the officials, could also be in anticipation of warmer weather. It will make it harder to move armored vehicles and tanks through the Ukrainian countryside. If Russia focuses on the east of Ukraine, Putin's troops could stay there for a number of months, believe the officials.

Many of Putin’s key moves including the invasion and the initial plan to encircle Kyiv were correctly predicted by US intelligence.

Ukrainian officials also think that after Putin’s original strategy failed, the Victory Day parade will be central to his Plan B for the invasion. Russians were hoping to take the capital of Kyiv and the rest of the country, but Ukrainains have led a strong resistance against the invaders.

Putin's "ultimate goal" is, was and will be to take over Ukraine but he failed, said Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a former Ukrainian Prime Minister. The Russian leader failed due to a "very strong resolve of Ukrainian military and very strong unity of Ukraine and the western world, and the sanctions that have been imposed by the US, Group of Seven and the European Union," he shared. Yatsenyuk added that now, as far as he sees, Putin switched to plan B, and that "my take is that plan B has a deadline," which is May 9.

Meanwhile, Russia was recently accused of genocide. The accusation came after retreating Russian troops left behind horrific evidence of mass graves, rapes and civilian executions. According to Ukrainian prosecutors, they had found 410 bodies in towns near Kyiv, and that some witnesses were too traumatized to speak. Survivors shared stories of executions and sexual violence that was not seen since Joseph Stalin's Soviet rule of terror in the 1930s.