MOSCOW — It was one of many greatest public celebrations of the conflict that Russia has seen because the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — an overflow crowd on the nation’s largest stadium, cheering pictures of destruction and songs about spilling blood and conquering Ukraine.

Formally, the occasion was tied to Russia’s annual Defenders of the Fatherland vacation, honoring veterans, however coming two days earlier than the anniversary of the invasion, it served as a televised present of common assist for the conflict, the armed forces waging it and the person behind it, President Vladimir V. Putin.

“I adore it!” stated Aleksandr, 47,  a lawyer from Moscow, who was waving a flag excessive up within the stands whereas a performer rapped in regards to the Ukrainian territories Mr. Putin claimed to have annexed final yr. “I don’t perceive how can I not assist it,” he stated of a conflict that the Kremlin forbids individuals to name a conflict, referring to it as a “particular army operation.”

The extremely choreographed live performance and rally romanticized Russia’s army and the conflict; whereas performers sang, the screens all through the stadium didn’t present them, however as an alternative performed movies of troopers preventing and firing heavy weapons, and destroyed buildings. Subsequent to the doorway to the stadium, volunteers sewed camouflage nets.

In uniform, First Lt. Nikolai Romanenko, carried out a rap “remix” that includes the favored World Struggle II tune “Katyusha,” with up to date lyrics together with, “I’m not afraid to stain my arms in blood as much as the elbow.”

One other particular person carried out a rap-ballad about “demons buried in Azovstal,” the Ukrainian fighters who held out for weeks in a metal plant in Mariupol, together with lyrics in Ukrainian, with a video mocking the Ukrainian ladies who pleaded for the evacuation of their husbands, sons and brothers.

Grigory Leps, one among Russia’s best-known pop singers, sang a tune fusing the Second World Struggle recruitment slogan “Homeland: Mom Is looking” with the modern pro-war chorus “We don’t abandon our personal.”

In all, the celebration at Luzhniki Stadium mirrored the Kremlin’s marketing campaign to normalize the conflict for the Russian populace, a tacit recognition that it’s going to not finish any time quickly. The occasion even featured some acknowledgment of Russian casualties, although not their huge scale.

“They’re making an attempt to militarize the entire society,” stated Grigory B. Yudin, a political philosophy professor on the Moscow Faculty of Social and Financial Sciences, who didn’t attend the occasion.

Tickets had been free, distributed principally to state staff and college students, who got the break day from work or research and supplied with round-trip transportation. Matvey, 19, a college pupil from town of Tambov, stated a number of buses from two universities there had traveled greater than eight hours every approach to the live performance. A number of attendees from the Moscow area stated that they had been inspired by their employers to go.

“Individuals had been bused there, pressured to attend; we have now reviews of that from a number of universities” stated Professor Yudin.

“Putin coerces individuals, lures them into collaborating, and these college students are promised free passes on exams,” he continued. “He needs each the entire mobilization of the nation and the entire passivity, a complete acceptance,” an strategy he described as “schizophrenic.”

The 81,000-seat stadium appeared greater than full regardless of temperatures far beneath freezing, with individuals within the aisles and on the sphere, and hundreds extra on the grounds outdoors. And for a lot of of them — at the very least these keen to talk with an American journalist — the keenness appeared real, even when they’ve been touched by the conflict’s losses.

“I assist it, sure, as a result of it was excessive time to begin this,” Katya, 26, who works for an aesthetic medication clinic within the Moscow area, stated of the conflict. She cited what she referred to as the struggling of many buddies from the Donetsk area of Ukraine, the place Moscow’s separatist proxies started preventing Kyiv eight years earlier than Russia’s full-scale invasion final yr.

However Katya admitted that she wished the conflict had ended already, and stated one among her college classmates had been killed. It’s a delicate subject — any criticism of the conflict may end up in a jail sentence — and he or she, like some others interviewed, declined to present her surname.

“I don’t perceive why it’s grow to be so drawn out,” she stated. “It’s a pity: Everybody of their households already has at the very least some acquaintances who died.”

Regardless of her assist for the conflict, she voiced some shock on the enthusiasm round her on Wednesday, tacitly acknowledging how synthetic such public shows could be.

“What impressed me essentially the most was that I may see individuals had been genuinely coming, not coerced,” she stated. “I additionally got here right here willingly myself.”

Her husband, Stanislav, 31, had obtained tickets to the occasion from his job, and stated he was glad he had come. “It was very emotional,” he stated.

Live performance M.C.s shared tales about a number of the Russian troopers preventing and falling in Ukraine and invited their kinfolk onstage. The Kremlin has not conceded the size of Russian casualties — about 200,000 killed or wounded, Western officers say — and has typically averted releasing the names of the lifeless.

Boris I. Lugin spoke of his son Anatoly’s loss of life in battle. “Our activity is to do every thing to win: Each beat of our coronary heart for victory, each beat,” he advised the group. “That is how I stay my life. A soldier’s father.”

A youngsters’s choir sang a tune, “Greetings Soldier,” written as a message to troops on the entrance, within the mildew of the letters Russian schoolchildren have been requested to write down as homework.

One other group of kids from occupied Mariupol had been dropped at the stage, together with a soldier named Yuri L. Gagarin, code title “Angel,” who was launched as having saved 367 youngsters from the devastated metropolis — although how he did so was not defined. As pictures of the destruction performed on the display, with out addressing the Russian bombardment that had leveled a lot of town — babies onstage coated their ears.

Ukraine and rights teams say that Russia has stolen hundreds of kids from occupied territory and has killed numerous civilians in Mariupol and elsewhere. However nobody onstage requested about these youngsters’s mother and father. One M.C. inspired the kids to hug Mr. Gagarin, who was embellished with an “Order of Braveness” for his military service, in thanks.

“These are our kids, and we, the Russian Military, should defend these individuals and these youngsters,” stated Mr. Gagarin, whose title echoes that of the primary particular person in area, Yuri A. Gagarin, a hero to many Russians. “We’re a robust military; we’re a robust military. However your assist is essential to us. We’re collectively; we’re going to win.”

It was the identical message delivered by each speaker on the occasion: Social unity and assist for the troops from all strata of society are important.

Mr. Putin made a short look, acknowledging the dissonance that individuals had been “gathered for a festive occasion” whereas troopers had been preventing and dying, and inspired all Russians to hitch the conflict effort.

“Even youngsters who write letters to our fighters on the entrance are essential,” he stated. “All our individuals are Defenders of the Fatherland.”

Anna Vasilyevna, 87, who had come to the live performance from Solnechnogorsk, 45 miles from Moscow, stated her father died preventing in World Struggle II. She fully supported Mr. Putin, as a result of “now every thing is similar because it was again then,” she stated, echoing the Kremlin’s propaganda equating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with Soviets preventing Nazis.

As she left the stadium, she handed an exhibit of “Heroes and Acts of Bravery.” On one facet of the panels had been heroes from World Struggle II. On one other, photos and descriptions of those that died invading Ukraine.

“And now we have now the identical heroes,” she stated.

Alina Lobzina contributed reporting from London, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Tbilisi, Georgia.