Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin claims conflict ‘coming to an end’ after scaled-back Victory Day parade – UK Times

Russia has lost more than 1,340,000 troops in the war with Ukraine.

In an update on Moscow’s military losses since, the ministry of defence said it had also lost 11,920 tanks, 41,712 artillery systems, 435, and 352 helicopters since its invasion in 2022.

On Friday alone, Ukraine claims it took out 1,080 personnel, 1,479 UAVs, and 82 artillery systems.

Ukrainians have welcomed a three-day ceasefire in the war with Russia, but say a long-term solution is urgently needed.

Kateryna Kizev, 22, who fled the frontline city of Kherson in the ⁠south and now lives in Cherkasy in central Ukraine, said: “On the one hand, this is very good because, honestly, the sleepless nights have gotten a bit tiresome.

“At least for a few days we will be able to sleep in peace and without the attacks.”

Oleksandr Boik, in Kharkiv, stated: “This ceasefire – for a day, or two or three – these are temporary measures. We ⁠need peace. It is the fifth year already. It is enough.

Another Kharkiv resident, Ramaz Tsytsyashvili, ‌said he hoped that the ceasefire would ​open the way for more talks to end the war.

“I have lost everything… We need peace.

“And perhaps there ‌will be a miracle and this temporary silence, this ceasefire, ​will hold up a bit and continue, and then step by step it will move to negotiations, and affairs will be solved in offices, not on the battlefield.”

Volodymyr Zelensky has said “Russia will not succeed in breaking Europe”, as he emphasised Ukraine’s plans to join the EU.

Following a phone call with António Costa, the leader of the European Council, the Ukrainian president said: “We will defend our independence and our people’s right to freely choose their path.

“And in doing so, we will also defend the right of all European peoples to live as they themselves wish.

“Russia will not succeed in breaking Europe or fracturing it – there have been many attempts, but all have failed. And none will succeed.

“We discussed with António our joint work on Ukraine’s further European integration – Ukraine will take its place as a full member of the European Union. We are preparing for the opening of clusters and further decisions.

“We also discussed recent steps in diplomacy and our arrangement, mediated by the United States, to carry out a prisoner exchange with Russia in a 1,000-for-1,000 format. I thank Europe for standing with Ukraine!”

The Independent’s Maira Butt writes:

Vladimir Putin used his Victory Day speech to claim confidence in Russia’s triumphs, as he presided over a dramatically scaled-back parade in Moscow on Saturday.

Addressing the crowd at the annual parade, which marks the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, the Russian leader voiced that he was confident of victory in Ukraine.

“Victory has always been and will be ours,” Putin said, as columns of troops lined up on Red Square. “The key to success is our moral strength, courage and valour, our unity and ability to endure anything and overcome any challenge.”

Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree “permitting” Russia to hold the military parade and said his forces wouldn’t target Red Square, after Donald Trump announced a three-day ceasefire.

Putin attempted to use his speech, which lasted less than 10 minutes, to project strength, claiming Russia would succeed in the Ukraine war thanks to its “moral strength, courage and valour”.

But the parade was a far cry from past years, when it had been used to show off Russia’s vast military, including its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Four years ago, Putin had stood grandly at a podium, surveying a legion of armoured military vehicles. Weeks earlier, he’d invaded neighbouring Ukraine, sparking a conflict that has dragged on ever since. During a defiant speech on that day, the Russian president launched an attack on Nato, Ukraine and a host of Western countries.

Surrounded by military hardware, he insisted that Russia was “fighting for the motherland, for her future, and so that nobody forgets the lessons of World War II”.

But this year things are different. For the first time in nearly two decades, those celebrations went ahead without any showy and heavy military hardware, amid new fears of long-range Ukrainian drone strikes that have been hitting deep inside Russia.

World affairs editor Sam Kiley meets the founder of Ukraine’s ultranationalist Azov movement, Andrii Biletskyi, now a decorated military brigadier general holding Russia back on its most aggressive line of attack in Donetsk province:

Russian officials defended the decision to carry out this year’s Victory Day parade in a slimmed-down form, without the usual display of weaponry such as tanks and missiles.

Officials said they need their war tanks to be on the battlefield, signalling that the Kremlin does not have enough weaponry to spare even for an hour’s display.

“Our tanks are busy right now,” Russian MP Yevgeny Popov told BBC.

“They are fighting. We need them more on the battlefield than on Red Square.”

On being asked if the parade is being scaled back, he said: “What other choice do we have?”

“Nato countries, Ukraine and Great Britain’s weapons, your king and your prime minister, are threatening us,” Popov told BBC’s Steve Rosenberg.

French police have arrested a Ukrainian man charged with committing war crimes at the Russian-run Izolyatsia prison in Donetsk.

The man is suspected of having voluntarily collaborated with Russian officials from 2017 to 2019, while assisting the head of the prison in torturing detainees, Ukraine’s prosecutor general Ruslan Kravchenko said. He has been living in France since 2021.

The torture prison was set up by Russian forces at the premises of a former factory and art centre, Izolyatsia, in Donetsk after capturing the city in 2014.

It swiftly became known as a site of illegal imprisonment and torture of many Ukrainian prisoners of war, along with activists and journalists, according to Kyiv Independent.