Andy McCarthy: FBI targeted Flynn because they knew he'd uncover illegitimacy of Russia probe

Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy told "The Next Revolution" Sunday that the FBI feared former national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn would uncover illegitimacies surrounding the origins of the Russia probe, and that they "needed to remove him if they wanted to continue this particular investigation."
"I think the best way to look at this is what the FBI and the Obama Administration wanted to do here was really audacious if you think about it in terms of the idea of trying to continue an investigation after a new president has come into power and is in a position to shut down the investigation -- when the president ultimately is the target of the investigation," McCarthy explained.

"In terms of Flynn, it's better to look at him as... something that was obstructing the bureau, rather than their objective in the investigation."
— Andy McCarthy, 'The Next Revolution'

"I think what happened specifically with General Flynn is that while the president brought in a lot of people into his original administration who had various types of expertise, he was kind of short on people with a lot of national security and foreign relations background. General Flynn was an exception," he continued.
The former national security adviser was a "savvy intelligence operator," who posed a threat to the FBI's handling of the investigation focussed on Russian interference in the 2016 election, explained McCarthy.
"He had been the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, he knew how the FBI worked in conjunction with the intelligence community and it is inconceivable to me, if you wanted to continue an investigation of the president during the president's administration, that they could have pulled that off with a sophisticated intelligence actor being the national security advisor and being loyal to the president," McCarthy, a Fox News contributor explained.
The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released dozens of transcripts of interviews from its Russia probe in 2017 and 2018 following demands by Republicans to make the records public -- after the content was cleared for release by the intelligence community.
The transcripts included testimony from many officials who said they were unaware of evidence showing coordination between the Trump campaign team and the Russians.
"He [Flynn] would necessarily have found out that they had investigated the Trump campaign, he would've found out for example that they were in the FISA court conducting surveillance on Trump campaign advisors," McCarthy added, "and he would've been able to figure out pretty easily that President Trump was the ultimate quarry that they had in connection with the investigation."
The Justice Department has moved to drop its case against Flynn last week after a series of bombshell documents were released exposing an alleged set-up in which top bureau officials indicated that their "goal" was to "to get him [Flynn] to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."
"I think in terms of Flynn, it's better to look at him as kind of something that was obstructing the bureau rather than their objective in the investigation," McCarthy said. "They needed to remove him if they wanted to continue this particular investigation."

Trump increases attack against Obama with ‘Obamagate’ tweet

President Trump on Sunday intensified his criticism of former President Obama by tying him to the Michael Flynn investigation and blasting his predecessor's recent criticism aimed at his administration's coronavirus response.
Last week, Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department dismissed the case against Flynn, Trump's first national  security adviser, which was seen as the key prosecution from Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign.
Trump, along with other Republicans, seized on the decision and framed it as an example of a Democrat-manufactured plot to remove him from office.
Trump retweeted  Eli Lake, a columnist at  Bloomberg, who said he has been reviewing the interview transcripts that were recently released in the collusion investigation. Lake wrote, “It’s now clear why every Republican on [Rep. Adam Schiff’s] committee in 2019 called for his resignation. He knew the closed door witnesses didn’t support his innuendo and fakery on Russia collusion.”
Sidney Powell, one of Flynn’s lawyers, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” that FBI agents did their best to hide their investigation and attempted to entrap Flynn. She mentioned a meeting on Jan. 5, 2017 at the White House that included Obama, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Director of  National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan.
Powell said the “whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, Clapper, Brennan and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President  Obama,” she told Maria Bartiromo, the anchor.
Bartiromo asked Powell if she believed the scandal reached up to Obama, and Powell responded, “Absolutely.”
Trump later tweeted, “OBAMAGATE,” indicating that he believes that Obama worked to undermine his presidency.
Obama on Friday told supporters that with regards to  Flynn's case, there “is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”
Obama’s criticism of the DOJ has been echoed by fellow Democrats, who have called out what they see as Trump’s influence over Barr. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the House Judiciary chairman, called the decision to drop the charges against Flynn “outrageous.”
“The evidence against General Flynn is s overwhelming. He pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. And now a politicized and thoroughly corrupt Department of Justice is going to let the president’s crony simply walk away,” he said in a statement.
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about two separate contacts he had with a former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Rep. Jim Jordan, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News last week that  Comey displayed “arrogance” and “ego” with the way he spoke about the Flynn case. The department said its continued prosecution of Flynn would “not serve the interests of justice.”
Trump said that Flynn was innocent and was targeted in an attempt to take down his presidency. He told reporters that he was unaware that the DOJ was going to drop its case.
“I felt it was going to happen just by watching and seeing, like everybody else does. He was an innocent man. He is a great gentleman. He was targeted by the Obama administration and he was targeted in order to try and take down a president,” he said.
Trump continued, “What they’ve done is a disgrace and I hope a big price is going to be paid. A big price should be paid. There’s never been anything like this in the history of our country. What they did, what the Obama administration did, is unprecedented. It’s never happened. Never happened. A thing like this has never happened.”
Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, told Fox News’ “The Next Revolution”  Sunday that the FBI likely feared that Flynn would uncover illegitimacies surrounding the origin of the Russia probe.
"I think the best way to look at this is what the FBI and the Obama Administration wanted to do here was really audacious if you think about it in terms of the idea of trying to continue an investigation after a new president has come into power and is in a position to shut down the investigation -- when the president ultimately is the target of the investigation," McCarthy said.
Obama told 3,000 members of the Obama Alumni Association that the Trump administration was woefully inept in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak.
“It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset — of ‘what’s in it for me’ and ‘to heck with everybody else’ — when that mindset is operationalized in our government,” he said.
Trump has insisted that his administration was correct in banning flights from China early on in the outbreak, despite being condemned in some segments of the media.
Larry Kudlow,  his national economic council director, told ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopolous” that he did not want to engage in a political back and forth with the former president,  but said Trump has worked well in incorporating the private sector and parts of the government in the response.
“I don’t understand what President Obama is saying. It just sounds so darn political to me. Look, what we have done may not be 100 percent perfect. These things happen once every 100 years,” Kudlow said.
Fox News' Joshua Nelson and the Associated Press contributed to this report

Obama White House Cartoons (REMEMBER?)

Virus cases rise in China, South Korea; Obama bashes Trump

ROME (AP) — Both China and South Korea reported new spikes in coronavirus cases on Sunday, setting off fresh concerns in countries where local outbreaks had been in dramatic decline.

Former President Barack Obama, meanwhile, harshly criticized President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as an “absolute chaotic disaster,” while U.S. states began gradually reopening, even as health officials are anxiously watching for a second wave of infections.

China reported 14 new cases on Sunday, its first double-digit rise in 10 days. Eleven of 12 domestic infections were in the northeastern province of Jilin and one in Hubei, whose capital Wuhan was the epicenter of the global pandemic. The Jilin cases prompted authorities to raise the threat level in one of its counties, Shulan, to high risk, just days after downgrading all regions in the country to low risk.

Authorities said the Shulan outbreak originated with a 45-year-old woman who had no recent travel or exposure history, but spread it to her husband, her three sisters and other family members. Train services in and out of the county were being suspended through the end of the month.

Responding to the latest, cases, the Jilin Communist Party secretary, Bayin Chaolu, the province’s highest official, told local media that “epidemic control and prevention is a serious and complicated matter, and local authorities should never be overly optimistic, war-weary, or off-guard.”

Jilin also shares a border with North Korea, where the virus situation is unclear but whose vastly inadequate health system has been offered help by China in dealing with any outbreak.

South Korea on Sunday reported 34 additional cases as a spate of transmissions linked to clubgoers threatens the country’s hard-won gains in its fight against the virus. It was the first time that South Korea’s daily jump has marked above 30 in about a month.

On Sunday, President Moon Jae-in said citizens must neither panic nor let down their guard, but warned that “the damage to our economy is indeed colossal as well.”

Around the world, the U.S. and other hard-hit countries are wrestling with how to ease curbs on business and public activity without causing the virus to come surging back.

During a conversation with ex-members of his administration, Obama said combating the virus would have been bad even for the best of governments, but it’s been “an absolute chaotic disaster” when the mindset of “what’s in it for me” infiltrates government, according to a recording obtained by Yahoo News.

The United States has suffered nearly 80,000 deaths from COVID-19, the most of any nation.

In Australia, Health Minister Greg Hunt said the government supports a European Union motion for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in China, a proposal stiffly resisted by Beijing, Australia’s No. 1 trading partner.

“We support the EU motion which includes an independent investigation, regulatory work on wet markets and also the potential for independent inspection powers,” Hunt told Sky News on Sunday.

Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive arm, said last week she would like to see China work together with her organization, and others, to determine how the virus emerged.

While the virus is believed to have originated in Wuhan, most scientists say it was most likely transmitted from bats to humans via an intermediary animal such as the armadillo-like pangolin. That has placed the focus on a wet market in the city where wildlife was sold for food.

However, Trump and allies have expressed confidence in an unsubstantiated theory linking the origin of the outbreak to a possible accident at a Chinese virology laboratory in Wuhan, something Chinese officials and state media have called an attempt to divert attention from U.S. failings through the dissemination of groundless accusations.

China says its too early to launch an investigation into the virus’ origin and angrily rejects accusations that it covered up the initial outbreak and didn’t do enough to prevent the global pandemic.

In New York, the deadliest hot spot in the U.S., Gov. Andrew Cuomo said three children died from a possible complication of the coronavirus involving swollen blood vessels and heart problems.

Three members of the White House coronavirus task force, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, placed themselves in quarantine after contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.

Worldwide, 4 million people have been confirmed infected by the virus, and more than 279,000 have died, including over 78,000 in the U.S., according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Spain, France, Italy and Britain have reported around 26,000 to 32,000 deaths each.

Businesses in the U.S. continue to struggle as more employers reluctantly conclude that their laid-off employees might not return to work anytime soon.

Some malls have opened up in Georgia and Texas, while Nevada restaurants, hair salons and other businesses were able to have limited reopenings Saturday or once again allow customers inside after nearly two months of restrictions.

About 1,500 opponents of Washington’s stay-at-home order to slow the coronavirus rallied again Saturday at the state Capitol, while some residents who reported stay-at-home violators said they’ve received threats after far-right groups posted their personal information on Facebook. Such protests have drawn relatively small crowds in several states despite encouragement from the White House, which is anxious to see the economy reopen.

The federal government said it was delivering supplies of remdesivir, the first drug shown to speed recovery for COVID-19 patients, to six more states, after seven others were sent cases of the medicine earlier this week.

In the U.S. Southwest, some small Native American villages are embracing extraordinary isolation measures such as guarded roadblocks to turn away outsiders as the virus ravages tight-knit communities.

Italy saw people return to the streets and revel in fine weather and Rome’s Campo dei Fiori flower and vegetable market was also bustling in Rome. But confusion created frustrations for the city’s shopkeepers.

In Spain, certain regions can scale back lockdowns starting Monday, with limited seating at bars, restaurants and other public places. But Madrid and Barcelona, the country’s largest cities, will remain shut down.

___

Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland, and Forliti reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.

South Dakota Gov. Noem clashes with Sioux tribes over coronavirus checkpoints

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem

Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Oglala Sioux Tribe Checkpoints.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has warned two tribal leaders she will take “necessary” legal action if the tribes don’t remove coronavirus checkpoints on their reservations.
“The State of South Dakota objects to tribal checkpoints on US and State highways regardless of whether those checkpoints take into consideration the safety measures recommended by” the South Dakota Department of Transportation, Noem wrote in letters to leaders of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
“Safety recommendations do not constitute consultation and they certainly do not equal agreement,” Noem added.
Both tribes have been allowing non-resident access to the reservations for essential business only -- with visitors required to fill out a health questionnaire.
Passing through the checkpoints takes “less than a minute," Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier told Time magazine.
Noem cited an April memo from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs in her letters that says tribes must enter into an agreement with the state government before restricting travel on U.S. highways.

“We are strongest when we work together; this includes our battle against COVID-19,” the governor said in a news release. “I request that the tribes immediately cease interfering with or regulating traffic on US and State Highways and remove all travel checkpoints.”
Frazier responded in a statement Friday.
"I absolutely agree that we need to work together during this time of crisis," Frazier wrote, "however you continuing to interfere in our efforts to do what science and facts dictate seriously undermine our ability to protect everyone on the reservation.
“The virus does not differentiate between members and non-members," he added. "It obligates us to protect everyone on the reservation regardless of political distinctions. We will not apologize for being an island of safety in a sea of uncertainty and death."

"We will not apologize for being an island of safety in a sea of uncertainty and death."
— Harold Frazier, chairman, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe

South Dakota is one of a handful of states that never issued a stay-at-home order, although both tribes have.
“We’d be interested in talking face to face with Governor Noem and the attorney general and whoever else is involved,” Chase Iron Eyes, a spokesman for Oglala Sioux President Julian Bear Runner, said, according to the Argus Leader of Sioux Falls.

Noem “threatened the sovereign interest of the Oglala people when she issued an ultimatum,” Bear Runner said on Facebook on Saturday, according to Time. “We have a prior and superior right to make our own laws and be governed by them."
He added he believes the tribe is in full compliance with the Department of the Interior’s memo because the tribe hasn't "closed non-tribal roads or highways owned by the state of South Dakota or any other government.”
There were at least 169 coronavirus cases among Native Americans out of 3,145 total statewide and 31 deaths as of Friday, according to the health department.

Obama White House may have seen 'opportunity to disrupt' Flynn, ex-FBI official says

It would be "abominable" if the Obama White House was behind the FBI's controversial interview of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a former assistant director of intelligence for the bureau said Friday night.

Kevin Brock shared his observations during an appearance on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle," where he responded to reports that former President Barack Obama had claimed the “rule of law is at risk" after the Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn over charges of lying to investigators.
"I think they saw this as an opportunity to disrupt the general. And I think what we have to find out [is...] -- this is critically important -- did the FBI conduct this interview at the behest of the White House or was it motivated by their own now well-established personal biases and prejudices against the president?" Brock told guest host Raymond Arroyo.
"That has to be determined. If it's the former ... Well, if it's either, it's abominable."
“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed -- about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said, according to Yahoo! News, in a web talk with members of the Obama Alumni Association.
“And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free," Obama reportedly said. "That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic -- not just institutional norms -- but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk."
Yahoo! News, in reporting the tape, noted that Obama incorrectly states the charges against Flynn, who was not charged with perjury. Instead, Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in the transition period between the Obama and Trump administrations. But Flynn’s supporters have long argued that the FBI set a perjury trap for Flynn.
Brock disagreed with Obama's alleged comments.
"My response to that is the abrogation of the rule of law was conducting an investigation that was not legally predicated," Brock said. "So if I go in and I talk you, Raymond, about something... that's not a federal crime as an FBI agent and I accuse you of doing it and I have proof that you did it, but it's not a federal crime... and you lie to me. There's no materiality there because there's no reason for me to be investigating in the first place."
New details emerged this week about what Obama himself knew at the time of the Flynn case. Obama warned the Trump administration against hiring Flynn and said he was “not a fan” of the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this story.

California Democrat reacts to Tesla lawsuit, pullout plan over coronavirus rules: ‘F--- Elon Musk’

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego

Elon Musk

A California Democrat seemed less than upset Saturday night at the news that entrepreneur Elon Musk planned to pull much of his company Tesla – along with an unspecified number of jobs -- out of the state over coronavirus shutdown rules that have stalled the automaker's operations.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego appeared to be saying something along the lines of “Good riddance” – except she didn’t exactly use those words.
“F--- Elon Musk,” was Gonzalez’s brief response on Twitter.
Her message contrasted sharply with those from lawmakers and candidates in Texas and Nevada, where Musk said his company plans to relocate. They seemed pleased with the news that jobs would be coming to their states instead of leaving.
“Texas gets better every day,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, wrote on Twitter, retweeting Musk’s announcement of Tesla’s planned California pullout. “Good conservative principles make good governance, and attract the best and the brightest. The future is happening in Texas.”
In Nevada, Dan Rodimer – a retired professional wrestler running for Congress as a Republican – also welcomed the Tesla news.
“Nevada NEEDS these jobs most of all right now, @elonmusk,” Rodimer wrote. “We would love to have you and Tesla HQ right here in the Battleborn State!”
Earlier Saturday, Musk wrote on Twitter that he planned to move Tesla’s headquarters and “future programs” to Texas and Nevada – adding that the company’s current facility in Fremont, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay area would remain open for some activity “dependent on how Tesla is treated in the future.”
Musk noted for his nearly 34 million Twitter followers that Tesla was “the last carmaker left in CA.” He referred to Tesla’s dispute with Alameda County, where Fremont is located, as “the final straw.”
In its lawsuit, filed Saturday, Tesla referred to the actions of Alameda County as a “power grab.”
“Alameda County’s power grab not only defies the governor’s orders, but offends the federal and California constitution,” the suit claims, according to the Mercury News of San Jose.
In a previous tweet, Musk said Tesla would be filing a lawsuit against Alameda County over the company not being allowed to reopen because of coronavirus-related rules.
“The unelected & ignorant ‘Interim Health Officer’ of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense,” Musk wrote.
Erica Pan, the Alameda County health officer, had said Friday that Tesla was working with the county, but the company had not yet been cleared to reopen the Fremont facility, even after California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that manufacturers would be allowed to resume operations, Reuters reported.
In March, Tesla appeared to be operating the Fremont factory in defiance of a local “shelter in place” order over the pandemic, the report said.
Pan told Reuters Friday that the health department had recommended Tesla wait at least one more week to monitor infection rates before reopening.
Tesla has already restarted its China factory after the pandemic forced it to temporarily close. Musk pointed to that as an example of how the company could reopen responsibly elsewhere.
“Tesla knows far more about what needs to be done to be safe through our Tesla China factory experience than an (unelected) interim junior official in Alameda County,” he tweeted.
Alameda County spokeswoman Neetu Balram issued a statement in response to Tesla’s lawsuit, saying the county’s Public Health Department has been working with Tesla in “a collaborative, good faith effort to develop and implement a safety plan that allows for reopening while protecting the health and well-being of the thousands of employees who travel to and from work at Tesla’s factory," the Mercury News reported.
“The team at Tesla has been responsive to our guidance and recommendations, and we look forward to coming to an agreement on an appropriate safety plan very soon,” the statement added.
The Mercury News report noted that Fremont’s mayor and the Bay Area Council seemed to be siding with Musk in calling for Alameda County to loosen the restrictions on the automaker.
Musk has previously criticized Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom over statewide coronavirus rules.
Fox Business' James Leggate contributed to this story.

Obama Was A Joke Cartoons

Court halts ban on mass gatherings at Kentucky churches

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A federal court halted the Kentucky governor’s temporary ban on mass gatherings from applying to in-person religious services, clearing the way for Sunday church services.

U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove on Friday issued a temporary restraining order enjoining Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration from enforcing the ban on mass gatherings at “any in-person religious service which adheres to applicable social distancing and hygiene guidelines.”

The ruling from the Eastern District of Kentucky sided with the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Nicholasville, but applies to all places of worship around the commonwealth. Two other federal judges, including U.S. District Judge David Hale, had previously ruled the ban was constitutional. But also on Friday, Hale, of Kentucky’s western district, granted Maryville Baptist Church an injunction allowing in-person services at that specific church, provided it abide by public health requirements.

Exceptions to the Democratic governor’s shutdown order include trips to the grocery store, bank, pharmacy and hardware store. Beshear had previously announced that places of worship in Kentucky will be able to once again hold in-person services starting May 20, as part of a broader plan to gradually reopen the state’s economy. Earlier Friday, he outlined requirements for places of worship to reopen, including limiting attendance at in-person services to 33% of building occupancy capacity and maintaining 6 feet (2 meters) of distance between household units.

The federal judge’s order in the Tabernacle Baptist Church case said Beshear had “an honest motive” in wanting to safeguard Kentuckians’ health and lives, but didn’t provide “a compelling reason for using his authority to limit a citizen’s right to freely exercise something we value greatly — the right of every American to follow their conscience on matters related to religion.”

Tabernacle had broadcast services on Facebook and held drive-in services, but the substitutes offered “cold comfort,” according to the opinion. The opinion went on to say that Tabernacle alleged irreparable injury and was likely to succeed on the merits of its federal constitutional claim, as the defendants didn’t “dispute the challenged orders place a burden on the free exercise of religion in Kentucky.”

“The Constitution will endure. It would be easy to put it on the shelf in times like this, to be pulled down and dusted off when more convenient,” Van Tatenhove’s opinion read. “But that is not our tradition. Its enduring quality requires that it be respected even when it is hard.”

His opinion says Kentucky’s attorney general urged the court to apply the injunction statewide, and since the executive order challenged didn’t solely apply to Tabernacle, the injunction granted would also have a similar scope.

“Both rulings affirm that the law prohibits the government from treating houses of worship differently than secular activities during this pandemic,” Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, said in a statement late Friday.

A three-judge federal appeal court panel had last week cleared the way for Maryville Baptist Church to hold drive-in worship services while adhering to public health requirements, an alternative that Beshear has strongly encouraged throughout the coronavirus pandemic. But that panel had stopped short of applying its order to in-person worship services.

Maryville had defied Beshear’s order for houses of worship to not hold in-person services amid the COVID-19 outbreak. At least 50 people attended its Easter service at the church, and the church has held other services since. In response, the governor said Kentucky State Police troopers would record license plates and place notices on vehicles telling Easter service attendees they would have to self-quarantine.

Maryville had turned to the appeals court after Hale had initially refused to stop Beshear’s order from applying to religious services, saying it bans all mass gatherings and thus does not discriminate against religion.

In his order Friday, Hale said the governor failed to prove there was no less restrictive alternative to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and failed to address the appeals court’s suggestion to limit the number of people who could attend services. He said that the burden of proof was on the governor and Maryville Baptist Church “would likely succeed on the merits of their claim under the Kentucky Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

Beshear’s office had not issued a statement on the injunctions as of late Friday night.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up within weeks. For some, especially older adults and those with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, even death.

Russia, Belarus mark Victory Day in contrasting events

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Victory Day, the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, in a ceremony shorn of its usual military parade and pomp by the coronavirus pandemic.

In neighboring Belarus, however, the ceremonies went ahead in full, with tens of thousands of people in the sort of proximity that has been almost unseen in the world for months.

Putin on Saturday laid flowers at the tomb of the unknown soldier just outside the Kremlin walls and gave a short address honoring the valor and suffering of the Soviet army during the war.

Victory Day is Russia’s most important secular holiday and this year’s observance had been expected to be especially large because it is the 75th anniversary, but the Red Square military parade and a mass procession called The Immortal Regiment were postponed as part of measures to stifle the spread of the virus.

The only vestige of the conventional show of military might was a flyover of central Moscow by 75 warplanes and helicopters.

The ceremony was the first public appearance in about a month for Putin, who has worked remotely as the virus took hold.

In his speech, he did not mention the virus — Russia has nearly 200,000 confirmed cases — or how its spread had blocked the observances that were to be a prestige project for him.

But he promised that full commemorations would take place.

“We will, as usual, widely and solemnly mark the anniversary date, do it with dignity, as our duty to those who have suffered, achieved and accomplished the victory tells us,” he said. “There will be our main parade on Red Square, and the national march of the Immortal Regiment — the march of our grateful memory and inextricable, vital, living communication between generations.”

The sharply reduced observances this year left a hole in Russia’s civic and emotional calendar. The war, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 26 million people including 8.5 million soldiers, has become a fundamental piece of Russian national identity.

Beyond the stern formalities of the Red Square military parade and smaller parades in other cities, Russians in recent years have turned out in huge numbers for the Immortal Regiment processions, when civilians crowd the streets displaying photographs of relatives who died in the war or endured it. Russian officials routinely bristle at criticism of the Red Army’s actions in the war, denouncing the comments as attempts to “rewrite history.”

An online substitute for the processions was taking place Saturday and many people are expected to display relatives’ photos from their balconies and windows in the evening.

A full military parade of some 3,000 soldiers was held Saturday in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, which has not imposed restrictions to block the virus’ spread despite sharply rising infection figures. Tens of thousands of spectators, few of them wearing masks, watched the event.

President Alexander Lukashenko, who has dismissed concerns about the virus as a “psychosis,” said at the parade that Belarus’ ordeal in the war “is incomparable with any difficulties of the present day.”

In one of the final events of the VE Day commemoration in Western Europe, which took place a day earlier, Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate was illuminated late Friday.

The words “Thank You” against a blue backdrop were projected onto the monument in Russian, English, French and German.

Earlier in the day German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier described May 8 as the day Germany, too, was “liberated” from Nazi dictatorship.

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Yuras Karmanau in Minsk, Belarus, contributed to this report.