On May 9, 2026 — the 81st anniversary of Soviet victory over Nazi Germany — Vladimir Putin held a Victory Day parade on Red Square with no tanks, no intercontinental ballistic missiles rolling over the cobblestones. Weapons were shown on giant screens instead. The army that was supposed to take Kyiv in three days couldn't be trusted to march in Moscow.
Said Trump, speaking to reporters in Washington: "Twenty-five thousand young soldiers every month. It's crazy." He announced a three-day ceasefire beginning that day; both Moscow and Kyiv accepted it, and 1,000 prisoners were exchanged.
Eisenhower spent a lifetime warning that pride and parades are not the same as power — and that wars fought without honest accounting always bleed the nation that wages them. Russia's $3 trillion economy is draining. The republic watches, keeps its counsel, and honors the cost of what war actually is.