Russia will hold its tradition military parade at Red Square in Moscow on Thursday marking Nazi Germany’s 1945 capitulation in .
President is expected to deliver a speech, and most likely to speak in defense of the war in Ukraine.
Russian media reported that some 9,000 soldiers, including some who have been fighting in Ukraine, would participate. An air show, canceled the last two years, is also anticipated.
Western leaders will not be in attendance. But the Kremlin has said that heads of state or government from Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenista, Cuba, Laos and Guinea Bissau were expected to sit in the visitors’ gallery next to Putin.
Russia marks Germany’s capitulation a day later than western European countries and the US, .
That’s because the surrender was formally and intentionally signed at 11:01 p.m. on May 8 by Berlin time, and therefore at one minute past midnight in Moscow. The idea at the time was to give the then-Soviet Union its own day to commemorate the end of the war in Europe, a national holiday known in Russia as “Victory Day.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, compared his country’s defense against Russia with the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany in his nightly video address on Wednesday.
The post Ukraine updates: Drones hit Belgorod, Krasnodar in Russia appeared first on Deutsche Welle.