Hackers target coverage of Putin’s Victory Day parade to compare him to Hitler

Vladimir Putin was targeted by hackers who sabotaged TV coverage of his Victory Day parade in yet another humiliation for the dictator.

While Russia celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, coverage of the event in at least four regions cut to footage of the destruction in Ukraine.

It compared Putin to Hitler and showed his patriotic ‘Z’ symbol as being similar to the swastika.

Each Russian soldier was labelled a ‘killer’, while viewers were also told how their president had freed murderers and paedophiles to fight in his war who had gone on to offend again.

Another caption referring to a business run by Putin’s former spouse Lyudmila, says: ‘Putin’s ex-wife earned a billion by lending to Russians at 300% per annum.’

There was also footage from the Crocus City concert hall massacre in March carried out by ISIS with claims Putin’s security services failed to protect people, leading to 145 deaths in the bloodbath.

The TV hacking covered at least four regions – Omsk, Irkutsk, Orenburg, and Bashkortostan.

Channels covering the parade – including Putin’s speech threatening the West with his strategic nuclear weapons – were interrupted. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin greets highest ranked officers during the Victory Day parade at Red Square on May 9 (Picture: Getty)

Broadcasts on Russian TV were interrupted by an anti-war hack (Picture: Caution News/east2west news)

Russian Sukhoi Su-25 close air support jets fly over the Red Square (Picture: EPA)

Viewers were encouraged to join the opposition to Putin’s regime.

It is unclear who was responsible for the hack, whether an opposition group or the Ukrainian secret services. 

The Victory Day commemoration is the most sacred event in the Russian calendar, marking the deaths of tens of millions who perished in the Second World War. 

Putin uses the event to burnish Russian patriotism and militarism amid the war he triggered against Ukraine.  

When he sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Putin evoked World War II in seeking to justify his actions that Kyiv and its Western allies denounced as an unprovoked war of aggression.

The Victory parade take place on the Red Square on 09 May to commemorate the victory of the Soviet Union’s Red Army over Nazi-Germany in WWII (Picture: Anadolu via Getty Images)

A legendary Soviet era T-34 tank with a red flag atop rolls during the Victory Day military parade (Picture: AP)

He cited the ‘denazification’ of Ukraine as a main goal of Moscow, falsely describing the government of Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust, as neo-Nazis.

Many observers see Putin’s focus on World War II as part of his efforts to revive the USSR’s clout and prestige and his reliance on Soviet practices.

‘It’s the continuous self-identification with the USSR as the victor of Nazism and the lack of any other strong legitimacy that forced the Kremlin to declare ‘denazification’ as the goal of the war,’ Nikolay Epplee said in a commentary for Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

The Russian leadership, he said, has ‘locked itself up in a worldview limited by the Soviet past’.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.