On May 8, 2026, the day before Russia's May 9 victory parade, Volodymyr Zelensky recorded a message from a forest in the Dnipropetrovsk region. A short video, dripping with symbolism that flips the roles: if Moscow casts itself as the victor over Nazism, then Ukraine reclaims that role for itself.

"Today's Russian Nazis are continuing their war and still trying to rebuild the same lunatic order that was defeated in the Second World War," Zelensky said, openly comparing Putin's regime to Nazi Germany. And he added: "Previous generations of Ukrainians fought against the occupiers in these very forests during the Second World War. Now our heroes are defending our people's right to life - defending themselves against this Russian occupier."

The timing is no accident. May 9 is the central date of Russian political mythology. The parades on Red Square. The Immortal Regiment. Victory over fascism. The whole post-Soviet identity story Moscow tells is built around that date. Zelensky, with one video shot in a forest, tried to steal ownership of the narrative.

At the same time Ukraine accepted a temporary ceasefire from May 9 to 11. Pure formality - Zelensky is playing politics, not stopping the conflict. A Balkan reader reads this kind of political rhetoric like a familiar text: through every one of our wars, the other side's history was being rewritten the exact same way. It is not a new technique, just with sharper tools.