Putin’s plan for a WWII remembrance will put old veterans in Covid peril

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MOSCOW — When local officials bearing flowers and a medal arrived to pay tribute to a 93-year-old grandmother and war veteran at her home north of Moscow, they didn’t get quite the welcome they expected. As one of the officials leaned in for a hug, the honoree’s granddaughter jumped in to stop it. “I said: ‘This is my grandma, my apartment,’” recalled Yevgeniya Ovod, who had been doing her best to keep her grandmother isolated from the outside world and the coronavirus. “‘I’m asking you to leave.’ Honestly, I pushed her out.” Such ceremonies to celebrate war heroes have been happening in homes and schools and at veterans’ unions all across Russia ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II. But the coronavirus has turned the festivities into a life-or-death matter for the country’s dwindling number of living veterans of the war.

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Victory Day, marked on May 9, is Russia’s main national holiday and has long been a cornerstone of the great-power patriotism cultivated by Mr. Putin. This year’s edition has been planned as one of the biggest celebrations yet, doubling as a coronation of sorts for Mr. Putin on the heels of a constitutional overhaul that could allow him to rule for life. But now, the May 9 military parade on Moscow’s Red Square, usually observed by world leaders hosted by Mr. Putin amid throngs of veterans and other spectators, may be canceled because of the pandemic, the Kremlin said. The April 22 referendum to approve the constitutional changes has already been postponed.

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Lyudmila Klimentenko, an 86-year-old survivor of the siege of Leningrad, opened her mail last week to find an invitation from her city’s mayor to a “festive event” for an award ceremony at which she and scores others would receive their 75th anniversary medals.

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Her reaction: “Bozhe moy!” — “My God!” “Is this to send us all to the other world?” she remembered asking. Her city, Pskov, on the border with Estonia, postponed the event after an outcry initiated online by Ms. Klimentenko’s son, Igor Batov, an environmental activist. But districts in St. Petersburg and other cities went ahead in recent weeks with medal awards ceremonies bringing veterans together with dozens of others.

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