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		</div><p>The pride and patriotism usually associated with Russia’s most important holiday, marked by a huge parade of soldiers and military hardware through Moscow’s Red Square, is mixing with apprehension and unease over what this year’s Victory Day may bring.</p>
<p>At first glance, preparations for Monday’s celebration of Victory Day, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, seem to be the same as ever.</p>
<p>Red Soviet flags and orange-and-black striped military ribbons are on display in Russian cities and towns.</p>
<p>Neighbourhoods are staging holiday concerts.</p>
<p>Flowers are being laid by veterans’ groups at monuments to the Great Patriotic War, as the Second World War is known in the country.</p>
<p>But the mood this year is very different, because Russian troops are fighting and dying again.</p>
<p>And this battle, now in its 11th week, is going on in neighbouring Ukraine, against what the government has falsely called a campaign against “Nazis”.</p>
<p>Some Russians fear that President Vladimir Putin will use it to declare that what the Kremlin has previously called a “special military operation” in Ukraine will now be a full-fledged war – bringing with it a broad mobilisation of troops to bolster Russia’s forces.</p>
<p>“I can’t remember a time when the May 9 holiday was anticipated with such anxiety,” historian Ivan Kurilla wrote on Facebook.</p>
<p>Ukraine’s intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said Moscow was covertly preparing such a plan.</p>
<p>British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told LBC Radio that Mr Putin was “laying the ground for being able to say, ‘Look, this is now a war against Nazis, and what I need is more people&#8217;”.</p>
<p>The Kremlin denied having such plans, calling the reports “untrue” and “nonsense”.</p>
<p>Asked by the Associated Press on Friday whether mobilisation rumours could dampen the Victory Day mood, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “nothing will cast a shadow” over “the sacred day, the most important day” for Russians.</p>
<p>Still, human rights groups reported a spike in calls from people asking about laws concerning mobilisation and their rights in case of being ordered to join the military.</p>
<p>“Questions about who can be called up and how have started to flow on a mass scale through our hotline about the rights of conscripts and the military,” said Pavel Chikov, founder of the Agora legal aid group, on the messaging app Telegram.</p>
<p>Russian state TV has ramped up the patriotic rhetoric.</p>
<p>In announcing the February 24 military operation, Mr Putin declared it was aimed at the “demilitarisation” of Ukraine to remove a perceived military threat to Russia by “neo-Nazis”.</p>
<p>A recent TV commentary said Mr Putin’s words were “not an abstract thing and not a slogan” and praised Russia’s success in Ukraine, even though Moscow’s troops have got bogged down, making only minor gains in recent weeks.</p>
<p>Ukraine, which has a democratically elected Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust, and the West have condemned the remarks as a fictitious cover for a blunt act of aggression.</p>
<p>But many Russians fed a steady diet of the official narrative have cheered on their troops, comparing them to “our grandfathers” who fought the Germans.</p>
<p>Popular support in Russia for the war in Ukraine is difficult to gauge in a country that has seen a steady crackdown on journalists in recent years, with independent media outlets shut down and state-controlled television providing a pervasive influence.</p>
<p>A recent poll by the respected independent Levada Centre found that 82% of Russians remain concerned by the military campaign in Ukraine.</p>
<p>The vast majority of them – 47% – are worried about the deaths of civilians and Russian soldiers in the war, along with the devastation and suffering.</p>
<p>Only 6% of those concerned by the war said they were bothered by the alleged presence of “Nazis” and “fascists” in Ukraine.</p>
<p>“A significant part of the population is horrified, and even those who support the war are in a permanent psychological militant state of a perpetual nightmare,” said political analyst Andrei Kolesnikov in a recent commentary.</p>
<p>A government campaign encouraging support for the military is using the distinctive black-and-orange St George’s ribbon that is traditionally associated with Victory Day.</p>
<p>The letter “Z” has become a symbol of the conflict, decorating buildings, posters and billboards across Russia, and many forms of it use the ribbon’s colours and pattern.</p>
<p>Rallies supporting the troops have taken place in recent days at Second World War memorials, with participants singing wartime songs from the 1940s.</p>
<p>One official has suggested that Victory Day marchers display photos of soldiers now fighting in Ukraine.</p>
<p>Normally on the holiday, Russians carry portraits of their relatives who took part in the Second World War to honour those in the so-called Immortal Regiment from a conflict in which the Soviet Union lost a staggering 27 million people.</p>
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