KYIV, Ukraine — In a war like this one, what does winning even look like?
That’s a question Russian President Vladimir Putin will have to answer, at least implicitly, when his country marks one of its biggest and most bombastic patriotic holidays, Victory Day, on Monday — a highly choreographed celebration of Moscow’s military might that awkwardly coincides this year with a smaller neighbor’s improbable defiance in the face of a withering 10-week assault.
“There’s no victory to announce,” said Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert at University College London. “So he’ll have to proclaim one all the more loudly.”
