Ukrainian soldiers have solidified their positions around the nation’s second-largest city of Kharkiv as Russian forces delivered more punishing attacks on an embattled steelworks in a bid to conquer the southern port of Mariupol in time for Victory Day celebrations. The annual V Day celebrations will see Russian troops marching through the Red Square in Moscow to mark the downfall on Nazi Germany in 1945.
V Day, national holiday to commemorate the part the former Soviet Union played in the Second World War, is expected to bring an increase in Russian attacks across Ukraine. And officials in the war-torn country have urged residents numbed by more than 10 weeks of war to heed air raid warnings.
“These symbolic dates are to the Russian aggressor like red to a bull,” Ukraine’s first deputy interior minister Yevhen Yenin said. “While the entire civilised world remembers the victims of terrible wars on these days, the Russian Federation wants parades and is preparing to dance over bones in Mariupol.”
