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Moscow’s four airports were forced to close temporarily as Ukraine launched a second night of drone attacks on the Russian capital just days ahead of a major military parade marking the end of the Second World War.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had been forced to down 19 drones over Moscow, out of more than 100 fired at targets across Russia.
Flights were halted for several hours overnight at all four airports serving Moscow to ensure air safety, Russia’s aviation watchdog said, while airports in a number of regional cities were also closed. No major destruction or injuries were reported, Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
China’s president Xi Jinping is among those expected to travel to Moscow for the parade on 9 May. Kyiv has urged against such a move – warning that any such participation would go against countries’ declared neutrality in the war.
Despite this, the Kremlin claimed on Tuesday that it expected 29 foreign leaders to be present at the parade, many of them neighbours with necessary and historic ties to Moscow, as well as countries such as Brazil, Egypt, Serbia, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Military units from 13 countries will also attend, the Kremlin said.
Several US veterans of the Second World War are expected to attend, said Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, but it is unclear whether any US officials intend to. Moscow has sent an invitation to the US ambassador.
Despite launching almost daily aerial assaults against cities across Ukraine, Putin has claimed to be seeking a three-day ceasefire from Thursday to mark the Russian commemorations – with the Kremlin trying to claim that the drone attacks showed Kyiv wanted to continue the war. Ukraine has repeatedly called for a full ceasefire, and has dismissed Russia’s proposed 72-hour truce as not a serious offer.
A number of Ukrainian casualties – including two fatalities – were reported overnight in wide-ranging drone strikes on Odesa, Donetsk and Kharkiv, where a large fire was sparked at the city’s largest market.
More than 100 commercial units were either damaged or burned to the ground in the attack on the Barabashovo market, said Kharkiv’s mayor Oleg Synegubov, who reported that at least 11 people had been wounded in overnight attacks across the region, four of them in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
“The Russian army shelled the largest market in the city, where many people come to shop. There are no military facilities or any potential military targets nearby,” said Mr Synegubov.
With Ukraine’s military reporting that Russia fired more than 130 drones in total, including some decoys, one person in the Donetsk city of Kramatorsk was killed and two others injured in attacks on residential and industrial areas, the city’s mayor said. Another person was killed in strikes on similar targets in Odesa, its regional governor said.
While heavy fighting continued along the front line in Ukraine, Kyiv’s military said on Tuesday that its forces had also been engaged in combat operations in Russia’s Kursk region – despite Moscow saying it had defeated a Ukrainian incursion there.
Although both sides continued to exchange heavy fire, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine and Russia had each exchanged 205 prisoners of war, in one of the largest such exchanges of the war and the fifth so far of 2025.
It comes just a fortnight after the two sides carried out their largest prisoner swap of the war so far, reportedly exchanging more than 500 prisoners. A month earlier, both sides each returned a further 175 prisoners.
“Our people are free. Our people are home,” said the Ukrainian president. “Today, Ukraine has brought back 205 warriors. Young and older men from almost all types and branches of the Armed Forces. Defenders of Mariupol and the entire front line.
“They have been scattered across many Russian regions, imprisoned within a system whose only purpose was to torment them and destroy their humanity ... Every day, we fight for our people. We will do everything to bring each and every one of them home.”
English (US) ·