A barrage of Ukrainian drones forced Russian airports, including in Moscow, to restrict flights on Tuesday — three days before the Kremlin will hold its grand military parade on Red Square to mark the defeat of the Nazis.
Speculation has swirled over the safety of the parade — which Moscow is holding more than three years into its Ukraine offensive and as the United States pushes, so far to no avail, for both sides to end the fighting.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a three-day truce to coincide with events marking 80 years since the end of World War II, which Kyiv has denounced as a “manipulation” and said is “just for the parade.”
Around 20 leaders are expected to attend the Red Square parade — including China’s Xi Jinping, due to arrive Wednesday.
But on the eve of Xi’s arrival, Moscow said Ukraine launched more than 100 drones overnight, including on the Russian capital. Kyiv, meanwhile, said Russia attacked with 136 drones.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defences shot down 19 drones around the Russian capital and debris fell on a major avenue, without causing injuries.
Flight restrictions were introduced at more than a dozen airports, including four in Moscow, Russian news agencies reported, citing the Federal Air Transport Agency — though traffic at the city’s main Sheremetyevo airport remained largely unaffected.
Russian media broadcast images of a cracked supermarket window and a blackened residential building facade in Moscow.
Airports were also affected in other cities including Volgograd and Nizhny Novgorod.
The governors of Voronezh and Penza reported that 18 and 10 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted in their regions respectively, without causing any casualties.
In the Kursk region, acting governor Alexander Khinshtein said an attack was carried out on an electrical substation in the city of Rylsk late Monday, wounding two teenagers.
“As a result of the attack on the city, two transformers were damaged, and the power was completely cut off,” he said on Telegram.
Ukrainian officials said at least two people were killed in the country by Russian attacks Tuesday.
Emergency services said one person was killed in the southern Odesa region.
Officials in the eastern city of Kramatorsk said one person there was killed there by Russian shelling.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has denounced Putin’s proposal of a three-day ceasefire to start at 2100 GMT on May 7 as “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere” for the May 9 parade.
He instead demanded an immediate, longer ceasefire.
Putin had in March rejected a US-proposed unconditional ceasefire after Zelensky accepted it.
Moscow has said the truce was aimed at testing Kyiv’s “readiness” for long-term peace.
US President Donald Trump on Monday defended Putin’s proposition, saying that it “doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a lot, if you knew where we started from.”
Washington has held separate talks with both Kyiv and Moscow to end the conflict but has threatened to walk away from the process if progress is not made soon.
Trump has made some unusually critical statements of Putin — a leader he has often made sympathetic statements on — for a series of deadly strikes on Ukraine this spring.
