MOSCOW_ The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, stated this Saturday that the war in Ukraine “is approaching its end,” and strongly criticized Western countries for helping that nation, in a brief truce that the two countries accused each other of violating.
“They began to escalate the confrontation with Russia, which continues to this day. I think it is coming to an end, but it is still a serious matter,” Putin told reporters.
During the commemoration of the Soviet victory against the Nazis, the Russian president attacked the role played by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the conflict.
“They spent months waiting for Russia to suffer a crushing defeat, for their state to fall apart. It didn’t happen. And then they got stuck in that dynamic and now they can’t get out of it,” he said.
“Possible meeting”
He added that he was willing to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a third country, but only once all the conditions for a possible peace deal had been agreed. “This should be the final point, and not the negotiations themselves,” he said.
The event in Moscow’s Red Square lasted just 45 minutes, including the presidential speech, and no weapons were displayed due to fear of Ukrainian attacks.
Unlike last year’s pomp, when around twenty international leaders from nations such as China and Brazil attended, this time only a handful of allied leaders attended, from countries such as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Slovakia.
Violations of the truce
The celebration was reinforced in extremis by the entry into force of a three-day truce between Russia and Ukraine, announced the day before by US President Donald Trump.
However, both parties accuse each other this Saturday of violating it.
“Since the beginning of the day, the number of attacks by the aggressor has reached 51,” the Ukrainian General Staff said.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense assured that “despite the ceasefire declaration, Ukrainian armed groups launched attacks with drones and artillery against the positions of our troops.”
A little later, Putin assured that he had not yet received any proposal from Ukraine regarding an eventual prisoner exchange, as Trump had announced.
After more than four years of fighting, Russia controls about 20% of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.
The commemorations, as seen on Russian television, included North Korean soldiers, who in 2025 helped Moscow expel Ukrainian troops from the Russian Kursk region.
The parade started at 10:00 a.m. local time (07:00 GMT) and ended at 10:45 a.m., under tight security measures. Mobile internet was cut off in central Moscow and many streets in the capital were almost empty.
The commemorations in Moscow’s Red Square are a key event that allows Putin to praise the memory of the Soviet triumph in 1945 and unite the Russian population in support of the military campaign in Ukraine.
But this year the events were threatened by incessant drone attacks from kyiv, and Muscovites do not seem very hopeful that peace will return soon.
The end of the conflict “will not be soon, no matter how much we all want peace,” said Elena, a 36-year-old economist who prefers not to give her last name, and is above all upset by the internet shutdown. “I need it and there isn’t one.”
May 9 is “a day like any other,” says Danil, 26, on his way to the gym. When asked if this brief truce is a prelude to peace, he answers with a brief “no.”
“Cease fire”
After two truce attempts, first Ukrainian and then Russian – which were not respected this week – Trump announced on Friday a three-day ceasefire between the parties starting this Saturday.
Trump considered that the end of the war is “ever closer”, while this week talks between Ukrainian and American negotiators resumed in Florida.
These had taken a backseat since the start of the war in the Middle East on February 28. On Friday, Zelensky said he expects Washington’s envoys to arrive in Ukraine in the coming weeks.
