Vladimir Putin has declared Russia will always be victorious as he oversaw a scaled-back Victory Day parade on Red Square held under heavy security amid mounting fears of Ukrainian attacks and growing public fatigue with the war.

Speaking to the crowd, the Russian leader invoked the sacrifices of the second world war to rally support for his soldiers fighting in the war in Ukraine. “The great feat of the generation of victors inspires the warriors carrying out the tasks of the special military operation today,” he said, using the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for his invasion of Ukraine.

“They stand against an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire Nato bloc. And despite this, our heroes move forward. Victory has always been and will always be ours.”

Despite the confident rhetoric, this year’s parade laid bare a moment of acute weakness for the Russian president.

Moscow on Saturday was blanketed in heavy security, with internet services switched off across the city as Ukraine continued to rattle the Kremlin with long-range drone and missile strikes – forcing organisers to strip the event of its usual pageantry.

It was not until the final hours that it became clear Ukraine would not disrupt the proceedings. On the eve of the parade, the US president, Donald Trump, announced Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a three-day ceasefire and prisoner exchange.

The customary display of missiles and armoured vehicles, a fixture of the parade since Putin introduced military hardware in 2017, was absent entirely. In its place, guests were shown a video showcasing Russia’s drone capabilities and nuclear arsenal.

The audience, which included a small delegation of foreign leaders from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, also watched as a column of North Korean soldiers marched across the square. North Korea has emerged as one of Russia’s closest allies in recent years, with its troops fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

The parade lasted about 45 minutes, roughly half the length of previous years.

“It was a modest parade,” wrote the pro-Kremlin commentator Sergei Markov on Telegram, adding: “There are still enormous challenges ahead.”

Russian authorities openly acknowledged that the security measures were designed specifically to protect Putin, an admission that underscored just how dramatically the calculus of a war Russia once expected to win in weeks has since shifted.

Earlier in the week, Putin pressed Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a ceasefire to coincide with the parade. Ukraine initially dismissed the proposal as a cynical ploy to shield the celebrations from drone attacks.

Zelenskyy’s response came on Friday night in the form of a decree laced with sardonic wit: Ukraine would, he announced, “permit” Russia to hold the event, by choosing not to attack it, out of deference to a request from the US president. The ceasefire is set to hold until 11 May.

This year’s Victory Day parade was the first to be held since Russia’s war on Ukraine has outlasted the Soviet Union’s entire campaign against Nazi Germany. Putin has repeatedly sought to draw a direct line between the two wars, falsely casting his invasion as a continuation of the struggle against nazism.

Tellingly on Saturday, he was seated not beside veterans of the second world war as in previous years, but flanked by soldiers who had fought in Ukraine.

With no victory in sight and no timeline for an end to the current war, the mood inside Russia is souring. Mass internet blackouts in the weeks before the parade, imposed by security services and justified as necessary precautions, have fuelled public anger and dragged on Putin’s approval ratings.

After years of war-fuelled growth, driven largely by mass military spending, the Russian economy is now showing signs of strain. Growth has slowed sharply, with rising inflation squeezing ordinary Russians and businesses alike, while the budget deficit climbs to record highs.

On the battlefield, the picture is similarly grinding. Russian troops are near a standstill, with neither side appearing close to a breakthrough.

Advances have slowed in recent months, both armies showing signs of exhaustion and sustaining heavy casualties, while continuing to strike each other’s energy infrastructure.

Yet there is little sign that any of this is pushing Putin toward compromise.

The Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Russian media on Thursday that Moscow saw no basis for a new round of trilateral talks with Ukraine and the US until Ukrainian forces withdrew from the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine – a condition Kyiv has flatly rejected. Ukraine continues to hold several key cities and fortified positions in Donetsk, defended at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.