China’s Xi stands beside Putin at Russia’s Victory Day parade

Vladimir Putin has led Russia’s Victory Day commemorations with a parade in Red Square and heightened security after days of Ukrainian strikes targeting the capital.

China’s Xi Jinping joined Putin as the Russian president told thousands of soldiers and more than 20 international leaders that Russia remembered the lessons of World War Two.

Putin used his speech to tie the war to today’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and said all of Russia was behind what he called the “special military operation” – now well into its fourth year.

For the first time, a column of trucks carrying various combat drones took part in the Victory Day parade, apparently because of their widescale use in Ukraine.

A unilateral, three-day ceasefire was announced by Russia to coincide with the lavish 80th anniversary event, which Ukraine rejected as a “theatrical show”.

Kyiv has labelled the truce as a farce, accusing Russia of launching thousands of attacks since it came into force at midnight on Wednesday. Russia says it has observed the ceasefire and accuses Ukraine of hundreds of violations.

In the hours before the ceasefire, Ukrainian drone strikes prompted airport closures and disruption for thousands of air passengers in Russia.

Heavy security and restrictions were in place in the centre of Moscow on Friday as Russia marked the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.

Before Putin’s address and a one-minute silence, the commander of ground troops, Oleg Salyukov, led 11,000 troops into Red Square, including some 1,500 who had fought in Ukraine. They were then inspected by Defence Minister Andrei Belousov.

Putin insisted that Russia “was and will be an indestructible barrier against Nazism, Russophobia, antisemitism”. The Russian leader has repeatedly and falsely referred to Ukraine’s leadership as Nazis.

“Truth and justice are on our side,” he said, insisting that “the “entire country, society and people support the participants” of the Ukraine war.

READ: Why did Putin’s Russia invade Ukraine?

Russia said 27 world leaders were attending the event, but it was the presence of China’s leader, alongside Putin and more than 100 Chinese soldiers marching on Red Square, that stood out.

China’s Xi Jinping had pride of place, sporting an orange and black St George ribbon, which Russia sees as a symbol of military glory but which has been banned by several neighbouring countries.

Russian state TV spoke of relations between the two countries as being at their highest-ever level, united against the “collective West”.

Russia’s pivot to the east was underlined by military contingents from North Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia, although the North Koreans did not march during the parade.

Thousands of North Koreans have fought against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region and Putin made a point of personally greeting some of them on Red Square.

He hugged three-star general Kim Yong-bok, considered the commander of North Korean forces deployed in Russia as well as deputy chief of the army’s general staff.

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un visited the Russian embassy in Pyongyang to highlight his country’s increasing ties with Moscow.

Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro were among the assembled guests, along with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, who is the only European Union leader to travel to Moscow.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had earlier made clear that leaders of EU member states and countries aspiring to join the union should not take part in the event because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Serbia is an EU candidate country and Vucic said he expected he would face consequences because of his decision to go.

For Putin, the attendance of China’s Xi on Victory Day is seen as a significant achievement, and he praised the “courageous people of China” as he paid tribute to Russia’s allies in World War Two.

Although Chinese forces played a prominent role in fighting against Japan, the government in Taiwan said Beijing and Moscow had distorted history. Taiwan said Chinese communist forces had made “no substantial contribution” in the war, unlike China’s then republican government, which later fled to Taiwan.

Putin and Xi held two rounds of talks before the parade as well as an informal chat on the war in Ukraine, Chinese reports said.

Joining the parade was a wide variety of Russian military hardware, including Yars missile systems, tanks and armoured personnel carriers. Six Su-25 military jets then flew over Red Square to complete the parade.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier warned that he could not guarantee the safety of anyone attending the event and has urged heads of state not to travel to Moscow.

Mykhailo Samus, a Ukrainian military analyst and director of the New Geopolitics Research Network, told the BBC he believed that Ukraine would forego attacking the parade, largely because of the presence of foreign leaders.

But should Ukraine choose to do so, it would constitute a legitimate military target, Mr Samus said.

During his evening address on Thursday, Zelensky said that Ukraine was “ready for a full ceasefire starting right now”.

“But it must be real,” he said in a video on X. “No missile or drone strikes, no hundreds of assaults on the front.”

He called on Russia to support the ceasefire and “prove their willingness to end the war”.

Ukraine has accused Russia of violating its own truce thousands of times since it was supposed to come into effect on Wednesday night.

On the second day of the truce, Ukraine said there had been nearly 200 clashes along the front line, eighteen Russian air strikes and almost four thousand instances of shelling by Russian troops.

In Prymorske, a village in the Zaporizhzhia region, a woman was reportedly killed after a Russian drone struck her car.

Russia’s defence ministry has said that all groups of Russian forces in Ukraine “completely ceased combat operations and remained on the previously occupied lines and positions”. However, they were reacting in a “mirror-like manner” to violations by Ukrainian forces.

Zelensky has repeatedly dismissed Putin’s proposal as a “game” and called for a longer truce of at least 30 days, something that is supported by Ukraine’s allies in Europe and the US.

He said he had spoken with US President Donald Trump to reiterate his readiness for a “long and lasting peace” and talks “in any format”. He said he had told Trump that a 30-day ceasefire was a “real indicator” of moving towards peace.

Writing on his social media platform Truth Social on Thursday, the US president reiterated the call for an unconditional ceasefire and warned of further sanctions for any party failing to sign up to it.