BBC’s Russian Service reports that U.S. President Donald Trump has announced his intention to officially rename two holidays in the American calendar: Americans will celebrate Victory Day in both the First and Second World Wars.
The U.S. National Veterans Day on November 11 (known as Remembrance Day in the UK) will be renamed Victory Day in World War I. Trump explains this change as necessary to properly acknowledge the contribution of the United States to the defeat of the German Empire.
May 8, currently officially known in the U.S. as Victory in Europe Day, will accordingly become Victory Day in World War II.
Trump shared these plans on his social media platform Truth Social. No official decree has yet been published, so it remains unclear whether the president intends to make May 8 a federal public holiday, as such authority under U.S. law rests solely with Congress.
In his post, Trump stated that “many of our friends and allies celebrate May 8 as Victory Day — and we did more than any other country to win World War II.”
“We won both wars,” the U.S. president assured his readers. “Other countries cannot compare with us — neither in military might, nor in courage, nor in flawless command.”
“Yet while other countries celebrate their victories, we do not,” Trump remarked with disbelief.
“That’s because we no longer have leaders who know how to do it right! So we’re going to start celebrating our victories again!”
Who really won the wars?
This year marks 80 years since Soviet troops captured Berlin, the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich, and the end of World War II.
In Russia, this date is commemorated as the end of the Great Patriotic War — one of the country’s most important public holidays, observed with massive military parades on Red Square in Moscow and in cities across the country.
For the Soviet Union, the war began in June 1941 with Germany’s invasion.
Trump’s claim that the U.S. won World War II contradicts the conclusions of many historians, although they do not deny the significant role the U.S. played in achieving victory.
According to publicly available statistics from the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, just under 420,000 Americans died during the war, with approximately 415,000 being military losses.
By contrast, historical estimates suggest that around 10 million Soviet military personnel and 15.5 million civilians died during World War II. Relative to the population of the Soviet republics, the highest number of deaths occurred among residents of the Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR, and Belarusian SSR.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the total death toll of World War II is estimated at between 35 million and 60 million people.
Moreover, the United States only entered World War II after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Before that, many European countries had already been fighting Nazi Germany for more than two years, and from June 22, 1941, the Soviet Union had joined the war as well.
World War II ended in August 1945 with the devastating U.S. nuclear strikes on Japan, after which the Japanese government announced its surrender.
In the United States, May 8 has not typically been widely celebrated, precisely because after the conflict ended in Europe, American forces continued fighting in the Pacific against Japan for several more months.
