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Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ahmed Elbediwy, Senior Lecturer in Cancer Biology & Clinical Biochemistry, Kingston University

We’ve all heard the advice: eat your fruit and vegetables, get your vitamins, and stay healthy. For the most part, that guidance holds up. But some nutrients have a more complicated story, and vitamin B12 is a fascinating example.

Also known as cobalamin, B12 is essential for life. It helps the body produce red blood cells, keeps the nervous system functioning, and plays a central role in how cells copy and repair DNA.

B12 is found naturally in animal products such as meat, fish, eggs, milk and cheese. Some cereals and breads are also fortified with it, helping people who do not eat meat get enough. Most people following a varied diet get the recommended amount, but vegans, people with certain gut conditions and older adults who absorb nutrients less efficiently may need supplements.

Without enough B12, things can go wrong, sometimes seriously, especially if deficiency is not recognised and treated. Yet in recent years, researchers have been asking whether high levels of B12 intake or high levels of B12 in the blood could be linked to cancer.

Staying balanced

The body is constantly making new cells. Every time a cell divides, it needs to copy its DNA accurately. Vitamin B12 is critical to that process. When levels are too low, DNA can be copied incorrectly, leading to mutations that, over many years, may increase the risk of certain cancers, particularly colon cancer. This is why B12 deficiency is taken seriously.

A 2025 case-control study from Vietnam found what researchers described as a U-shaped relationship between B12 intake and cancer risk, with both lower and higher intakes associated with increased risk. Because this kind of study can show an association but cannot prove cause and effect, the takeaway is not that B12 is dangerous. It is that balance matters.

It might seem logical that if B12 helps healthy cells thrive, taking extra doses should offer extra protection against cancer. But research does not fully support this. Vitamin B12 supports cell growth generally, not only the growth of healthy cells. One concern is that, if pre-cancerous cells are already present, very high availability of growth-supporting nutrients such as B12 could, in theory, support their growth too. But this remains difficult to prove in humans.

Overall, studies of high-dose B vitamin supplements taken over long periods have not shown clear protective effects against cancer incidence or cancer deaths. One analysis did report a reduced risk of melanoma, but this was a cancer-specific finding rather than evidence that high-dose B vitamins prevent cancer generally. Some observational research has also suggested a slight increase in lung cancer risk linked to long-term, high-dose B6 and B12 supplementation, particularly among men and smokers, although this kind of study cannot prove that the supplements caused the cancers.

Doctors have noticed that many cancer patients show unusually high levels of B12 in their blood. This raises an important question: does elevated B12 contribute to cancer, or can cancer itself cause B12 levels to rise?

Research in 2022 concluded that high B12 in cancer patients is often an “epiphenomenon”. In other words, the vitamin appears alongside the disease but does not necessarily trigger it. Further research from 2024 reached a similar conclusion.

This effect is thought to involve two main mechanisms. First, tumours can affect the liver, which stores large amounts of B12. When the liver is damaged or under strain, it may release more B12 into the bloodstream. Second, some tumours may increase proteins that bind to B12 in the blood. This can push blood test readings higher without necessarily meaning the body’s cells are receiving or using more B12.

Useful indication

Researchers are also recognising that elevated B12 may not be a cause of cancer, but it could be a useful marker of whether cancer is present or progressing. A large 2026 study found that colon cancer patients with very high B12 levels survived a median of around five years, compared with nearly eleven years for those with normal levels.

Similar patterns have been found in oral cancer and in patients receiving immunotherapy, where elevated B12 has been associated with poorer outcomes. This means that unexplained, persistent high B12, especially when it is not caused by supplements, should not be ignored. It may point to liver disease, blood disorders or an underlying cancer that has not yet been detected.

For most people, this is not something to worry about. B12 from a normal diet containing meat, fish, eggs, dairy or fortified foods is not usually the issue: it is very difficult to consume too much B12 from food alone. Deficiency remains a more common and better-established problem than excess.

The concern is prolonged high-dose supplementation without medical advice, or a blood test showing persistently high B12 when someone is not taking supplements.

The broader message is simple: more is not always better. Cancer cannot be prevented by loading up on any single vitamin. Long-term habits matter more: eating a balanced diet, exercising regularly, avoiding smoking, protecting your skin and attending routine health screenings.

So what about vitamin B12? Get enough through food or supplementation if you need it, especially if you are vegan, older or have a condition that affects absorption. But leave the megadoses on the shelf unless a doctor advises them. With B12, as with many nutrients, the goal is not as much as possible. It is the right amount.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Vitamin B12: the essential nutrient with a complicated cancer link – https://theconversation.com/vitamin-b12-the-essential-nutrient-with-a-complicated-cancer-link-282527

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michael Mayowa Farayola, PhD Graduate, School of Computing, Dublin City University

If artificial intelligence (AI) systems shape decisions that affect people’s lives, they should do so fairly. This should be a given considering that potential applications for AI include automated hiring systems, as well as tools used in education, finance and criminal justice.

But ensuring the fairness of AI systems is far more complex than it might sound. Despite years of research, there is still no consensus on what fairness means, how it should be measured, or whether it can ever be fully achieved.

Fairness inherently depends on context. What counts as fair in one domain may be inappropriate or even harmful in another. In criminal justice, fairness may prioritise avoiding disproportionate harm to particular communities. In education, it may focus on equal opportunity and long-term outcomes.

In finance, it often involves balancing access to credit with risk assessment. Because AI systems must be formalised mathematically, researchers translate fairness into technical definitions expressed through metrics that specify how outcomes should be distributed across groups.

These metrics are useful tools, but they are not neutral. Each encodes assumptions about which differences matter and which trade-offs are acceptable.

Problems with the data

A deeper issue lies in the data itself. AI systems learn from historical datasets that reflect past decisions, institutional practices, and social inequalities. When a model is trained to replicate observed outcomes, such as hiring decisions or loan and mortgage approvals, it may reproduce existing injustices under the appearance of objectivity.

Optimising for one notion of fairness often means violating another. This tension is evident in automated loan approval systems. An algorithm may be designed so that applicants with the same predicted probability of default are treated similarly across demographic groups.

Yet one group may still be more likely to be incorrectly denied credit, while another may be more likely to receive loans they later struggle to repay. Fairness in predictive accuracy can therefore conflict with fairness in how financial risk and opportunity are distributed.

These differences often reflect structural inequalities embedded in the data the model is trained on. Groups that have historically faced barriers to credit, due to factors such as discrimination or exclusion from financial systems, may have thinner credit histories or lower recorded incomes.

As a result, models can treat socioeconomic disadvantage as a signal of higher risk, even when it does not reflect an individual’s actual ability to repay.

The same pattern emerges in hiring. If a company historically promoted fewer women into senior roles, a system trained to predict “successful” candidates may learn patterns that favour characteristics more common among men, even if gender is not explicitly included as an input. In both cases, the model does not invent bias, it inherits it.

A fundamental question is whether AI systems mirror the world as it was, or attempt to correct for known injustices.

The idea of fairness is further complicated by how it is assessed. Many assessments examine a single protected attribute, such as gender or race, in isolation. While common, this approach can obscure how discrimination operates in practice.

An automated hiring system might appear fair when comparing men and women overall, and fair when comparing ethnic groups overall, yet it might also consistently disadvantage older women from minority backgrounds.

Complex evaluation

People are defined by several characteristics that intersect, including age, ethnicity, disability, and socioeconomic background. Because these intersectional subgroups are often small and underrepresented in data, the harms they face may remain invisible in standard evaluations.

This invisibility has a direct technical consequence. When a subgroup is small, the model encounters too few examples to learn reliable patterns for that group and instead applies generalisations drawn from the broader categories it has seen more of, which may not reflect that group’s actual characteristics or circumstances.

Errors and biases affecting small subgroups are also less likely to surface in standard performance metrics, which aggregate results across all users and can therefore mask poor outcomes for minorities within minorities. Which means that those most at risk are therefore often the least visible.

These challenges suggest that fairness in AI cannot be reduced to better metrics or more sophisticated algorithms. Fairness is shaped by institutional context, historical legacies, and power relations.

Decisions about what data to collect, which objectives to optimise, and how systems are deployed are influenced by social and organisational factors. Technical fixes are necessary but insufficient. Meaningful approaches must engage with the broader context in which AI systems operate.

This includes involving interested parties beyond engineers and data scientists. People affected by AI systems, often members of marginalised communities, possess contextual knowledge about risks and harms that may not be visible from a purely technical perspective.

Participatory approaches, in which affected groups contribute to the design and governance of AI systems, acknowledge that fairness cannot be defined without considering those who bear the consequences of automated decisions.

Even when interventions appear successful, they may not remain so. Societies change, demographics shift and language evolves. A system that performs acceptably today may produce unfair outcomes tomorrow. In particular, recent advances in large language models, the technology underlying many widely used AI tools, add further complexity.

Unlike traditional systems that make specific predictions, these models generate language based on vast collections of historical text. Such datasets inevitably contain stereotypes and imbalances.

Fairness is therefore not a one-time achievement but an ongoing responsibility requiring monitoring, accountability, and a willingness to revise or withdraw systems when harms emerge.

Together, these challenges suggest that fairness in AI is not a purely technical problem awaiting a finite solution. It is a moving target shaped by social values and historical context.

Rather than asking whether an AI system is fair in the abstract, a more productive question may be: fair according to whom, under what conditions, and with what forms of accountability? How we answer that question will shape not only the systems we build, but the kind of society they help to create.

Michael Mayowa Farayola receives funding from Taighde Éireann Research Ireland grants 13/RC/2094_P2 (Lero) and 13/RC/2106_P2 (ADAPT) and is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

– ref. AI doesn’t create bias, it inherits it – how do we ensure fairness when it comes to automated decisions? – https://theconversation.com/ai-doesnt-create-bias-it-inherits-it-how-do-we-ensure-fairness-when-it-comes-to-automated-decisions-280927

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Paul Hough, Lecturer Sport and Exercise Physiology, University of Westminster

While some people can spring out of bed at six in the morning and go straight into their day, others prefer to wake up later as they’re most productive in the afternoon or evening. This difference is due to your chronotype – the biological tendency to prefer certain times of day for sleep, waking and activity.

But these aren’t the only factors affected by your chronotype. A growing body of research also suggests that your chronotype can affect the benefits you see from exercise.

People who naturally rise early and feel sharpest in the morning are “early chronotypes”, whereas those who prefer to wake later and function better in the afternoon or evening are “late chronotypes”. People who fall in between are “intermediate chronotypes”.

Your chronotype is determined by your circadian rhythms – the body’s natural daily cycles that repeat around every 24 hours. Although these are strongly influenced by our environment, they function even without external cues such as daylight and food. These rhythms affect our physiology, behaviour and health.

Our circadian rhythms are controlled by the body’s circadian system, which is made up of tiny biological clocks composed of proteins, which are found in organs and tissues. These clocks rely on genes that help coordinate when different processes happen, such as when we feel alert or sleepy.

The circadian system also influences many other bodily functions, including blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar regulation and blood vessel function. As these factors are also affected by physical activity, this may explain why aligning your workouts to your natural chronotype can be beneficial.

Some studies support this, suggesting that the time of day people exercise can influence health outcomes – including cardiovascular fitness and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity and some cancers.

However, as these were observational studies (which only show associations rather than cause and effect), they can’t definitively prove that the findings were solely caused by the timing of the exercise.

But a recent randomised controlled trial has investigated whether aligning workouts with chronotype could enhance the benefits of exercise. The researchers specifically looked at people who were at risk of cardiovascular disease.

Participants were grouped according to their chronotype, which was measured using a specialist questionnaire. Morning types exercised between 8–11am and evening types exercised between 6-9pm. A third group exercised at the opposite time to their chronotype (morning types in the evening and evening types in the morning).

Participants whose exercise was aligned with their chronotype experienced greater improvements in blood pressure, aerobic fitness, blood glucose, cholesterol and sleep than participants whose training times were misaligned with their chronotype.

But though these improvements show that timing exercise to your chronotype can enhance its health benefits, there are a couple of important nuances.

Even the group that exercised at the supposedly wrong time still experienced health benefits, showing that exercise is beneficial even when it doesn’t align with your chronotype. The study also did not include intermediate chronotypes, who make up around 60% of the adult population. For these people, the timing of exercise may be less important.

Based on the available evidence, exercise timing appears to be a meaningful consideration, particularly for people who are strong morning or evening chronotypes.

Beyond your chronotype

So how do you know your chronotype?

Most people have an intuitive sense of this based on when they naturally prefer to sleep and wake. However, work schedules and care-giving responsibilities often force us into routines that conflict with our chronotype. Over time, this makes it harder to be sure of your chronotype.

For this reason, researchers developed a questionnaire to help you determine your chronotype. The 19 questions include what time you feel you’re at your peak and how easy you find it to wake up in the morning.

Once you have a clearer sense of your chronotype, you can start thinking about when to schedule your training.

However, chronotype isn’t the only factor that can affect training and how you respond to exercise. This is good news for those who may not be able to align workouts with their chronotype.

For instance, body temperature usually peaks in the afternoon regardless of chronotype, which enhances muscle function. This is why strength, speed and coordination tends to be best in the afternoon, making it a prime window for resistance training and technical practice for most people.

Habitual training time can also shift performance over time as the body adapts to the time you regularly train. So even if you’re naturally a night owl, consistent morning training may eventually make you perform better at that time.

Another critical factor to consider when deciding when to workout is sleep.

If you haven’t slept well the night before, research suggests it’s better to exercise earlier in the day, regardless of your chronotype. This is because the drive to sleep, known as “sleep pressure”, builds steadily from the moment you wake up and peaks just before you fall asleep. By evening, growing sleep pressure makes exercise feel harder and can impair your performance.

Exercising late in the evening can also reduce sleep quality, particularly when the session is intense. As a general rule, leave at least a two-hour gap between exercise and bedtime.

There’s no single best time to exercise that works for everyone. While the evidence on the long-term health benefits of matching exercise time to chronotype is growing, some principles apply broadly.

Peak performance varies by chronotype, and matching your workout time to yours may help you train harder and achieve better health benefits. However, any exercise is better than none – regardless of timing.

If you’re a night owl but can only train in the morning, a warm-up is essential. Wear extra clothing and start with 10-15 minutes of light aerobic activity to gradually increase body temperature and increase alertness.

If evenings are your only option, opt for moderate or low-intensity activities (such as yoga or a jog) to avoid disrupting sleep.

Paul Hough does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Are you exercising at the wrong time? How your body clock can affect your workouts – https://theconversation.com/are-you-exercising-at-the-wrong-time-how-your-body-clock-can-affect-your-workouts-282297

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Vinicius de Carvalho, Director, King’s Brazil Institute and Senior Lecturer for Brazilian Studies, King’s College London

This year’s International Booker Prize shortlist presents a diverse and intriguing array of books that all demonstrate the highly creative imagination and inventiveness of their authors – and translators, of course.

Readers are invited to immerse themselves in six richly told tales from Bulgaria to Brazil and several points in between. Across these novels, we meet the unreliable narrator of a meta-fiction, a failed modern witch, a family of Iranian émigrés, a filmmaker compromised by the Nazis, a brutal prison warden, and a gender-traversing figure who seeks to save their own skin by shapeshifting.

Booker panel chair Natasha Brown has great praise for the shortlist, saying: “With narratives that capture moments from across the past century, these books reverberate with history. While there’s heartbreak, brutality and isolation among these stories, their lasting effect is energising.”

Here, our six literary experts guide you through the nominations for 2026.

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King

Set in 1930s Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule, this exquisitely layered novel follows Japanese writer Aoyama Chizuko and her Taiwanese interpreter Ông Tshian-ho’h through a culinary and emotional landscape seeded with deliberate breadcrumbs: details that only reveal their full significance upon return visits to the book.

Taiwan Travelogue’s meta-fictional architecture is quietly audacious. Yang frames the narrative through a fictional author, a fictional translator and their respective silences, making the unreliable narrator not merely a device but a structural argument about whose knowledge counts and whose remains obstructed.

What makes the book genuinely pleasurable, however, is its treatment of intimacy between the two women. The queer undertow is rendered through the minute economies of shared meals and unfinished sentences, through which Yang smuggles the most profound questions about desire, friendship and colonial entitlement into the everyday.

Eva Cheuk Yin Li, lecturer in culture, media and creative industries

She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated by Izidora Angel

She Who Remains feverishly journeys through a centuries-old transgenerational wound that has reached its boiling point: a final reckoning between silence and testimony, tradition and change, truth and lies, living and dying.

A trans story narrated from an unspeakable place, the novel centres on Bekija, a 33-year-old gender-traversing member of a disappearing Albanian community ruled by the violent laws of the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini.

In a place where women are a commodity and the only path to freedom is the willingness to kill and die, Bekija absconds their fate of a forced marriage as the last “sworn virgin” under the Kanun, socially transitioning from female to male.

A novel saturated with poetic intensity, captured stunningly by Izidora Angel’s translation, She Who Remains is a dervish dance of a dream. Timelines perpetually split, survival is not a promise, and gender outlaws face the impossible choice to break the cycle of centuries-old violence or perish in a gust of ash.

Boriana Alexandrova, senior lecturer in women’s and gender studies

The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump

The Witch is an ambiguous, puzzling novella about Lucie, a minimally gifted witch. As she passes on her magic to her daughters, readers might expect a story of feminist empowerment. But instead, the family Lucie thought she knew flies away from her, and her own powers fail her when her husband leaves and her parents separate. The Witch tells the story of her response to this disintegration.

The novel shares its name with a famous 1862 French history of the witchcraze by Jules Michelet. But instead of Michelet’s potent witches defying medieval patriarchy, Lucie lives in a drab, modern world of fracture and disenchantment. That makes Ndiaye’s tale more realistic than magical.

If witchcraft is a metaphor for women’s power, then as a daughter, wife and mother, Lucie’s story is one of missed opportunities and pensive struggle. A weird but interesting read.

Marion Gibson, emerita professor of renaissance and magical literatures

On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan

In a remote, forgotten Brazilian penal colony built on historical violence, a sadistic warden initiates a monthly fatal hunt of inmates during the prison’s final days.

It’s impossible to read On Earth As It Is Beneath without thinking of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony – not only because of the setting but also the distressing feeling that envelops the reader, almost making them a character in this brutal narrative.

Maia manages to capture the absurdity and violence of a concentration camp environment. The dynamic between calm and horror is particularly crucial. There are few prisoners, watched over by only one guard. However, what makes this prison inescapable is the dehumanisation of everyone – prisoners, the guard, the prison director. One way or another, all are forgotten by society, as if dead.

Without question, this is a novel that reminds us how much dehumanisation happens “on earth as it is beneath”.

Vinicius De Carvalho, reader in Brazilian and Latin American studies

The Nights Are Quiet In Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated by Ruth Martin

A moving, quietly powerful novel about one family’s experience of revolution, exile, memory and the enduring persistence of hope, The Nights Are Quiet In Tehran begins after the 1979 Iranian revolution and moves across four decades to 2009, and a life rebuilt in Germany.

Four sections are narrated at ten-year intervals in the first person. The novel opens in 1979 with Behzad, the left-leaning activist father in Iran, then moves to Germany through Nahid, the literature-obsessed mother who is the family’s emotional anchor. The third section follows Laleh, the firstborn daughter, on an awakening family visit to Iran in 1999. The fourth centres on 2009, when son Mo is detached from politics until Iran’s Green Movement erupts onto global TV.

This structure gives the book the feeling of a family album: intimate, incomplete and quietly charged with history, the shifting voices allowing each generation to speak from its own wound. Ruth Martin’s translation reads with clarity and gentle elegance, preserving the novel’s shifts in voice and emotional nuance.

Narguess Farzad, senior lecturer in Persian studies

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin

A cleverly constructed historical novel from one of the most acclaimed contemporary German writers, The Director follows W.G. Pabst as he returns to Nazi Germany after an unsuccessful stint in Hollywood. Once a doyen of Weimar cinema, he is now expected to make films bolstering the nation’s wartime morale.

The German title, Lichtspiel, is an early term for the medium of film – literally, “play of light”. What wilful illusions did the likes of Pabst conjure up to persuade themselves that their art could and should continue under Nazism? Daniel Kehlmann searches for an answer in characteristic gripping narrative style, here with an added cinematic flair.

Ross Benjamin’s translation masterfully differentiates between the novel’s many voices, including Pabst’s wife, son and assistant, whose confused, half-repressed memories of work on his final wartime film frame the novel.

Karolina Watroba, lecturer in German studies

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org; if you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Boriana Alexandrova receives funding from UKRI and Horizon Europe.

Eva Cheuk-Yin Li, Karolina Watroba, Marion Gibson, Narguess Farzad, and Vinicius de Carvalho do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. International Booker Prize 2026: heartbreak, brutality, shapeshifting – six experts review the nominees – https://theconversation.com/international-booker-prize-2026-heartbreak-brutality-shapeshifting-six-experts-review-the-nominees-281179

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jennifer Mathers, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, Aberystwyth University

The military parade through Moscow’s Red Square on May 9, “Victory Day”, is the pinnacle of Russia’s annual celebrations marking the end of the second world war. Televised live and watched by millions, including invited foreign dignitaries, the Victory Day parade is all about showcasing Russia’s status and pride.

The first Victory Day parade was held in 1945 amid the triumph and relief at the defeat of Nazi Germany. A second was held in 1965 – but only two more were staged by the Soviet Union, in 1985 and 1990.

Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, however, the parade has become a huge demonstration of Russia’s military prowess and might. And, since the start of Russia’s mass invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the parade has also provided a snapshot of the progress of the conflict, including the country’s wartime mood and the extent of its international support.

But this year’s Victory Day parade showed the world a Russia that is fearful, diminished and isolated. There were no military vehicles or equipment on display. Instead, the products of Russia’s military industry were only visible to the crowds in video images displayed on big screens. Concerned that Ukraine might attack Moscow during the parade, Russian officials made the decision to protect valuable weapons needed for the war by withdrawing them from the event entirely.

The Russians had good reasons for their anxieties. Ukraine has developed the capability to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. Just a few days before the parade, two of Moscow’s airports were temporarily closed in response to hundreds of drones reportedly attacking in multiple regions of Russia, including near the capital.

This is not the first time that Russian officials have scaled down a Victory Day parade out of concern about Ukrainian attacks. In 2023 the situation was similar, with drone strikes in Russia leading up to the holiday amid widespread expectation of an imminent major Ukrainian counteroffensive. But even then, the number of military vehicles in Red Square not eliminated entirely. And the following year the parade featured launchers for intercontinental ballistic missiles to emphasise that Russia was willing and able to use any means necessary – including nuclear weapons – to impose its will on Ukraine. In 2025 the parade featured nearly 200 military vehicles.

Now, in the fifth year of the war, the Russian leadership is clearly concerned about their ability to protect their capital city from the Ukrainians, despite surrounding Moscow with elaborate air defences – including some equipment hastily relocated from combat zones.

It was not only the absence of military equipment that made this Victory Day parade underwhelming. One of the features of the event that helps to elevate it beyond a national holiday is the presence of international distinguished guests in the audience. This year, only a handful of national leaders were in attendance, three of whom represent former Soviet states and close allies of Russia: Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

The contrast with last year’s parade was stark. In 2025 – to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war – Putin hosted leaders from nearly 30 countries, most notably China’s president Xi Jinping, who was given the place of honour next to Putin. Chinese soldiers marched in the parade, providing a further symbol of the cooperation between the two countries and the support that Moscow could rely on from Beijing.

This year Russia’s president was surrounded not by powerful world leaders but by elderly war veterans placed around him in the viewing stand. In this company, Putin looked like just another old man, dreaming of glory days long behind him.

The sharp reduction in the number – and status – of foreign leaders that the Russians were able to attract to Moscow this year reflects changes in the international political climate that are not in Russia’s favour. In 2025, the Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, attended the parade – an indication of rifts within the European Union over the war and support for Ukraine.

In 2026 Fico was again in Moscow – but didn’t attend the parade. Last year Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro sat in the viewing stands – this year he sits in a US jail having been removed from power in an American raid.

War-weariness in Russia

Putin’s Victory Day speech this year was another indication of a change in Russia’s fortunes, striking a far less confident tone than in previous years. In 2023, the Russian president compensated for that year’s scaled-back parade with defiant rhetoric, claiming Russia was under threat of attack from the west and styling the conflict as “the people’s war”. In 2024, Putin responded to a suggestion from French president, Emmanuel Macron, that western troops might be deployed to Ukraine with thinly veiled threats that Russia might use nuclear weapons to reassert its dominance.

This year Putin was far more subdued. Although he denounced the west and claimed that victory would belong to Russia, these statements had a tired, ritualistic feel. His emphasis on Russia’s ability to endure anything and respond to any challenge hinted at the current state of the war.

Russia is losing territory on the battlefield to the Ukrainian forces for the first time since 2024 and is reported to be losing troops faster than it can replace them. Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones regularly attack Russian oil refineries, threatening Moscow’s ability to sell its most profitable export.

But this war is far from over. Russia still has a large military, a well-resourced defence industry and is increasingly drawing in foreign soldiers to fight on its side – North Koreans marched alongside Russian troops in the parade.

But while Russia may not be on the verge of defeat, the way that it celebrated its most important holiday of the year suggests a new war-weariness. It’s a big contrast with the confidence exuded by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. His tongue-in-cheek decree giving Putin permission to hold the parade suggests a turning point in the two countries’ morale – at the very least.

Jennifer Mathers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Fearful, diminished and isolated: what this year’s Victory Day parade in Moscow tells us about Russia’s war against Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/fearful-diminished-and-isolated-what-this-years-victory-day-parade-in-moscow-tells-us-about-russias-war-against-ukraine-282609