Sawt Falasteen - No tanks, no internet, simmering discontent: Putin to host nervous May 9 parade

The parade -- marking the World War II defeat of the Nazis and held as Putin's Ukraine offensive has dragged on for longer than the Soviet Union's fight against Germany -- has become a central symbol of his 26-year rule.

Since launching the offensive on Ukraine in 2022, Putin has channelled Soviet victory to galvanise support for a campaign that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

But as Russia rolls out unpopular restrictions and a decisive military victory appears more and more out of reach, the scaled-back celebrations come amid increased nervousness in Moscow.

Tanks and missiles will not roll through Red Square for the first time in almost two decades -- a decision taken as Ukraine launches drone attacks as far away as the Urals.

Kristina Sitnikova, a 26-year-old visiting Moscow from the Russian Far East, said she would not be in the square for the parade as she was scared of "being at the wrong place at the wrong time".

Moscow, which pounded Ukraine with deadly strikes this week, warned foreign diplomats in Kyiv it would hit the Ukrainian capital if Kyiv targeted the commemorations.

- 'Hard to see it as care for me' -

Russia has introduced massive wartime censorship, keeps its real military losses -- believed to be in the hundreds of thousands -- secret, and has jailed or forced war critics into exile.

But the widespread internet outages, a slowing economy and rising prices have seen discontent trickle into the public domain in recent weeks.

Major floods in Dagestan, protests from farmers against an animal cull in Siberia and authorities blocking attempts to organise protests against the internet outages have also led to localised pockets of frustration.

An appeal to Putin by a Russian blogger who lives in Europe, Victoria Bonya, raising a string of concerns -- without criticising the war and offering support for Putin personally -- gripped Russian political discourse last month, racking up millions of views.

Putin's personal approval rating -- hovering around 70 percent according to state pollsters -- has dipped to its lowest since the start of the war.

On the streets of Moscow, the internet outages split opinion.

"We used to somehow live without the internet, didn't we?," 44-year-old Alexander Zubkov, told AFP.

But student Anna Chizhikova, 21, was frustrated she could not access her banking app, pay for lunch or talk to friends.

"It's hard to see it as care for me," she said.

- 'Where are we headed to?' -

"The feeling that something is going not right has been ongoing for a few months," Russian political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told AFP.

"There is a question in the air: where are we headed to and how?"

While Moscow is, for now, tolerating some criticism, at the heart of the anxiety is the topic that is strictly taboo: the war.

In 2022, Russia cast its offensive as a days-long campaign that would see them capture Kyiv, install a friendly puppet regime and have little-to-no serious consequences for Russians at home.

Four years and hundreds of thousands of casualties later, Moscow's troops have been unable to capture even the areas of eastern Ukraine that Putin claims to have annexed and the domestic consequences are mounting.

Negotiations on the conflict have led to nowhere.

Stanovaya, the analyst, said Putin is under pressure from hardliners, who accuse him of not being tough enough in Ukraine, and from the business community, frustrated he has not struck a deal yet.

"There is a desire for more certain action: either you end the war and negotiate, or we hit Kyiv as hard as we can and show them," she said.

But on the streets of Moscow days before the parade, many remained defiant.

"I feel calm for our country, it is powerful," Olga Nikolenko, a speech therapist who travelled from the southern city of Stavropol to watch her son march in the parade, said.

"Victory will be ours," she added.

"Nothing will end any time soon, that's for sure," Arkady Solyanov, an ecologist in his 30s, said.

"We will have to still be patient."

B.Mahmoud--SF-PST