Russians and Ukrainians Face Off in Vienna Over 9th of May 'Victory Day'

On the 9th of May, as Vladimir Putin stood at a podium on Red Square to address television viewers from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin Island, Russians and Ukrainians in Vienna were busy battling over the history of "Victory Day."

In the shadow of the Austrian capital's enormous Soviet-era World War II monument, pro-Russian revelers slipped through police cordons to lay flowers at the foot of the statue, while pro-Ukrainian protesters on the opposite end of the Schwarzenbergplatz square unfurled a banner reading "Russland = Terrorstaat."

"Before 2022, I didn't have any strong feelings about May 9 one way or the other," Nikita, a student originally from the largely destroyed Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Rubizhne, told Newsweek.

"But now I can't stand the people who are celebrating today," he said. "Because of them, my grandmother is forced to live without water, without medicine, without connection to the outside world, and there's nothing I can do even to visit her, let alone to rescue her from Russian occupation."

In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, the 9th of May holiday has become something akin to the Russian equivalent of America's Fourth of July. Until recently it was also celebrated in Ukraine, a country that suffered heavily during the 1941-1945 Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany.

Since 2014, however, when Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and sponsored the creation of the Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" on the internationally recognized sovereign territory of Ukraine, Ukrainians have increasingly turned away from participation in "Victory Day" celebrations.

"We're here because the Russian ambassador will be laying flowers at the monument," Katya, who fled Kyiv during the second week of Russia's full-scale invasion last year, told Newsweek. "We thought that we would be able to hold a demonstration, but the police wrote us an email at 11 p.m. yesterday and gave us until 6 a.m. to answer, so we can't do anything that would constitute a political action."

Despite the absence of a fully organized political protest, however, the 50 or so pro-Ukrainian demonstrators who had come to the square were easily identifiable by their blue-and-yellow—and also red-and-black—flags.

Pro-Russian figures, by contrast, largely wore orange-and-black St. George's ribbons, which have served as a symbol of the holiday since Vladimir Putin's Kremlin organized campaigns to distribute replicas of the Tsarist-era award on the streets of Russia in the run-up to the 9th of May in 2005.

Although the Austrian police had set up temporary barriers to prevent the two crowds from mixing, several of the pro-Russian revelers were not permitted to pass through the protective line to the site of the flower laying ceremony.

"Our victory was the victory of our Russian spirit, and that of all our republics, over fascism," Olga, who had come to the square decked out in Red Army dress uniform cap and a military-style shirt decorated with a wide assortment of Soviet-era medals, told Newsweek.

"Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Moldovans—we all died together," she said. "Even though only a few hundred thousand of your fellow Americans died, and even though you now claim that the victory was all yours, and even though you did not open up a second front until 1944, we still honor your contribution, also."

Artur, who told Newsweek that he was born in the Republic of Georgia but moved to Vienna from Serbia two years, sees the Ukraine War as a struggle between the U.S. and Russia—one in which the U.S. is the aggressor.

"I don't support the war," he said. "Russia and Ukraine are brotherly nations, and regular people in both countries don't want this war, but high-level political games made it inevitable."

"It's all a struggle over power, a struggle over territory, but it's not a struggle between Ukraine and Russia," Artur added. "Russia is just defending its position against America."

Malachi, who told Newsweek that he was born in Lviv, Ukraine, before emigrating to Austria shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, traced the roots of the Russia-Ukraine War back more than three centuries to one Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a former Ukrainian leader of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who organized a rebellion against Polish rule in Ukraine in the 1600s.

That conflict led to the transfer of the Ukrainian lands east of the Dnieper River from the Poles to the Russians. Ironically, some of those same lands east of the Dnieper are being contested once again—more than 300 years later—this time by Ukraine and Russia.

"It's very painful that two brotherly nations are killing one another," Malachi said. "But it is happening as punishment for the murder of Jews by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in the 17th century."

Malachi paid particular attention to the pro-Ukrainian demonstrators carrying red-and-black flags, a symbol of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a paramilitary group that fought against the Soviet Union during and after WWII.

"I was given political asylum 33 years ago because of the people waving that flag," he explained. "People carrying that flag killed my ancestors, and now even the Jews in Ukraine have become fascists."

Although very few of the more official-looking figures exiting the flower-laying ceremony were as talkative as those actively engaging in arguments with pro-Ukrainian figures on the square, one well-dressed woman wearing a large St. George's ribbon offered up her interpretation of events before climbing into the back seat of a chauffeured BMW.

"Victory Day is about the defeat of fascism in 1945," she told Newsweek, "but what is happening now in Ukraine indicates that we did not achieve a full victory."

Despite the politicized rhetoric, however, after the official Russian delegation had left the scene and the Austrian police barriers blocking off the monument came down, something approximating a pre-2014—or at least a pre-2022—holiday celebration ensued.

Using the base of the enormous half-circle rotunda ringing the monument as a table, a multi-ethnic group of post-Soviet celebrants laid out a banquet replete with cold vodka, sweet wine, pickled herring, sliced salami, cured pork fat, and watermelon, all watched over by the black-and-white portrait of the organizer's great grandfather, who had participated in the liberation of Vienna in 1945.

As they ate and drank, the revelers sang an a cappella rendition of the Soviet military ballad "Katyusha," a song that lent its name to the Red Army's WWII-era multiple launch rocket systems, which served as the predecessor to the "Grad" launchers still in use on the front lines in Ukraine today.

"Our celebration has nothing to do with what is happening in Ukraine today," Sergey, the great grandson of the Red Army soldier in the portrait, told Newsweek as the crowd sang around him. "If we hadn't won back then, then today in the world there would be no Russians, no Slovaks, no Jews. Our victory is what allowed nations to continue to live. Without our victory, there wouldn't be any Ukrainians."