Russia and Ukraine are trading threats and attacks ahead of Moscow’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations, seeding further anxiety about potential weekend violence in both capitals.
Moscow has already announced that it would scale back the parade, acknowledging that it was concerned about long-range Ukrainian strikes. The Russian foreign ministry has urged foreign diplomats to leave Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, warning late Wednesday that a “retaliatory strike” would be “inevitable” if Kyiv were to disrupt the parade — a prospect that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has appeared to allude to in a series of statements.
On Thursday, the ministry reiterated that advice and said that embassies should “take with the utmost seriousness” its recommendations “to leave Kyiv in a timely manner.” The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that enhanced security measures for Victory Day celebrations had taken the “threat from the Kyiv regime” into account.
The escalation in rhetoric around the parade, which celebrates the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany, comes as the war in Ukraine continues unabated for a fifth year. Deadly Russian strikes are ripping into Ukrainian cities; fighting rages on the front line; and Ukraine is mounting long-range strikes into Russia.
That deep-strike campaign has intensified in recent weeks and is seen as the driver behind Russia’s decision that the Victory Day parade in Moscow — long an annual display of power and pageantry — will be held without heavy military equipment. President Vladimir V. Putin announced a cease-fire timed to the celebrations that was widely viewed as an acknowledgment that Ukrainian drones posed a threat.
Mr. Zelensky has seized on that announcement as a sign of weakness, largely dismissing the proposal and saying his government wants to secure a lasting peace and not just to protect a parade glorifying Russia’s military. He countered with a cease-fire proposal of his own, which the Kremlin ignored.
“Russia has not halted any form of its military activity,” Mr. Zelensky noted in his overnight address on Wednesday, hours after Russian drones had struck a kindergarten in the Sumy region, killing two employees. Saying that Ukraine would “act in kind,” he mused that “Russia has fought to the point where even its main parade now depends on us.”
On Thursday morning, Ukraine said Russia had launched 102 attack drones overnight. And Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine had launched nearly 350 drones inside Russia overnight.
On Monday, a drone slammed into a Moscow high-rise a few miles from the Kremlin. While Ukraine did not claim responsibility for that attack, Mr. Zelensky said Russia’s decision to downsize the parade showed its weakness and that “they fear drones may buzz over Red Square.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky highlighted Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign in announcing that Ukrainian missiles had traveled more than 1,500 kilometers (about 930 miles) to strike targets in Cheboksary in Russia. The long-range attacks, he said, were an “entirely just response to Russian strikes.”
