In May 2015 Russia held its Victory Day parade in Red Square, Moscow, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s surrender at the end of the Second World War. The ceremony was boycotted by the country’s former Western allies in protest at Moscow’s interference in eastern Ukraine, though the military procession featured contingents from China and India. Addressing the crowd, President Vladimir Putin complained, “In the past decades, we have seen attempts to create a unipolar world” – by the United States, in cahoots with its allies. By the end of December 2016, with Russia claiming its version of success in the Syrian War and beginning to play kingmaker in Libya, Putin declared in an interview on Russian national television that Western efforts had failed. “We are already living in different times,” he said. “The global balance is gradually restoring.”
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