May 9 (UPI) — Russian President Vladimir Putin led celebrations marking 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with a parade Friday in Moscow’s Red Square of more than 11,000 troops, war-era T-34 tanks, light and heavy armored vehicles and advanced military hardware.
Putin was flanked by Chinese President Xi Jinping and 26 other world leaders who flew in specially to witness the proceedings, which featured a People’s Liberation Army unit and 12 other contingents from former Soviet republics, non-aligned countries and communist Vietnam and Laos.
However, the state-run TASS news agency stressed that veterans from the United States and Israel who fought in World War II would also be taking part.
The events started with the Preobrazhensky Regiment Honor Guard carrying the Russian national flag and the Victory Banner hoisted over the Reichstag in Berlin by soldiers of the 150th Idritskaya Rifle Division in May 1945.
Around 1,500 troops serving in Russia’s war in Ukraine were among the forces on parade.
In his address, Putin tried to link the tragedy that befell Russia and the 80% of the world drawn into what he called the “fiery orbit of World War II,” to the war on Ukraine saying Russia had, and would always be, an “indestructible obstacle to Nazism, Russophobia and anti-Semitism” sworn to stop violence “perpetrated by the champions of these aggressive and destructive ideas.”
“Truth and justice are on our side. The whole of Russia, our society and all people support the participants in the special military operation,” he said.
A three-day truce announced by Putin last month for the celebrations that was supposed to go into force Thursday appeared to have fallen by the wayside with Ukraine’s General Staff reporting Friday morning its forces had come under Russian attack almost 200 times in the past 24 hours on 10 of 13 fronts, as well as in Russia’s Kursk region.
In a post on social media, the General Staff claimed Ukrainian forces repelled all the attacks, but acknowledged fighting had been particularly fierce on the Kharkiv front where Russian forces mounted four assaults near Vovchansk close to the border.
“In total, Russian forces lost 1,300 people. Also Ukrainian soldiers damaged four tanks, four combat armored vehicles, 36 artillery systems, 39 Kh-BPLA drone-launched missiles and 120 other vehicles,” said the General Staff.
Civilian targets were also attacked in several front-line regions, injuring three people.
Zaporizhzhia Gov. Ivan Federov said in an update on his Telegram account Friday that a 45-year-old man has been injured in a drone attack on the village of Bilenke on the right bank of the Dnieper River.
The Kherson province Military Administration said on social media that a 60-year-old resident of Kherson was in the hospital in serious condition after sustaining blast injuries and shrapnel wounds to his legs from a drone strike early Friday.
An 83-year-old man was injured in the Nikopol area of Dnipropetrovsk but would be treated as an outpatient, the province’s governor, Serhii Lysak, wrote in a post on Telegram.
Ukrainian Air Force Command told the Pravda Ukrainska news agency Friday that border areas of the eastern Sumy province had been targeted with more 150 guided aerial bombs since the cease-fire came into effect and that attacks by Russian Su-34 warplanes, escorted by Su-35 fighter jets, were ongoing.