Russian and Chinese troops march together in Moscow's show of force

Russian troops fighting in Ukraine marched together with Chinese forces in Moscow's Red Square yesterday to mark the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat in a celebration marked by greater spectacle than in recent years.

- Pjotr Sauer Shaun Walker Kyiv

After several years of scaled-back Victory Day celebrations, Vladimir Putin addressed the largest parade since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. "The Soviet Union took upon itself the most ferocious, merciless blows of the enemy," the Russian president said of the second world war, before turning to his invasion of Ukraine.

"Truth and justice are on our side. The entire country, society and people support the participants of the special military operation," Putin said, using the Kremlin's preferred term to describe the war.

While Putin was presiding over the parade, EU foreign ministers as well as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, travelled to Lviv in western Ukraine, where they announced the establishment of a tribunal for Russian war crimes. "Russia's aggression cannot go unpunished and therefore establishing this tribunal is extremely important," the EU's chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said during the visit.

In what is being billed as a major show of solidarity, Keir Starmer, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, will all be in Kyiv today to meet the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It will be the first time the leaders of all four European countries have visited Ukraine together. They will back calls for an unconditional 20-day ceasefire, something to which Moscow has been reluctant to agree.

Moscow welcomed the highest number of foreign dignitaries to attend the parade since 2015 – at least 27 – while presenting the turnout as proof it is not internationally isolated, four years into its war in Ukraine.