This photo shows an apartment building where the downed
Ukrainian drone fell at in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo)
- MOSCOW
— All four international airports around Moscow temporarily suspended
flights Tuesday as Russian forces intercepted more than 100 Ukrainian drones
fired at almost a dozen Russian regions, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said.
-
- Nine other regional Russian airports also temporarily
stopped operating as drones struck areas along the border with Ukraine and
deeper inside Russia, according to Russia's civil aviation agency, Rosaviatsia,
and the Defence Ministry. It was the second straight night that the Moscow
region reportedly was targeted.
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- The drone assault threatened a planned unilateral 72-hour
ceasefire in the more than three-year war announced by President Vladimir Putin
to coincide with celebrations in Moscow marking Victory Day in World War II.
Also read: Russia-Ukraine war: Putin announces three-day ceasefire in May to mark Victory Day celebrations
- The day celebrating Moscow's defeat of Nazi Germany in
1945 is Russia's biggest secular holiday. Chinese President Xi Jinping,
Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and others will gather in the
Russian capital on Thursday for the 80th anniversary and watch a parade
featuring thousands of troops accompanied by tanks and missiles.
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- Ukraine's Foreign Ministry urged foreign countries not to
send military representatives to take part in the parade, as some have in the
past. None is officially confirmed for this year's event.
-
- Ukraine will regard the participation of foreign military
personnel as “an affront to the memory of the victory over Nazism, to the
memory of millions of Ukrainian front-line soldiers who liberated our country
and all of Europe from Nazism eight decades ago,” a statement on the ministry's
website said.
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- Security is expected to be tight. Russian officials have
warned that internet access could be restricted in Moscow during the
celebrations and have told residents not to set off fireworks.
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- Putin last week declared the brief unilateral truce “on
humanitarian grounds” from May 8. Ukraine has demanded a longer ceasefire.
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- Russia has effectively rejected a US proposal for an
immediate and full 30-day halt in the fighting by insisting on far-reaching
conditions. Ukraine has accepted that proposal, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
says.
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- US President Donald Trump said Monday that the brief
truce “doesn't sound like much, but it's … a lot if you knew where we started
from.”
-
- Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that
ceasefire orders had been issued to Russian troops but soldiers would retaliate
if fired upon.
-
- Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia swapped hundreds of
captured soldiers in one of the largest exchanges since Moscow's full-scale
invasion started in February 2022. The last exchange was on April 19.
-
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russia's
Ministry of Defence said they each received 205 soldiers in the swap. Both
sides said the United Arab Emirates had mediated the exchange, as on previous
occasions.
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- The long-range strikes by both sides continued, however.
Ukraine has used increasingly sophisticated, domestically produced drones to
compensate for having a smaller army than Russia along the roughly
1,000-kilometre front line, and to take the war onto Russian soil with
long-range strikes.
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- Russia has used Shahed drones as well as 1,300-kilogram
glide bombs, artillery and cruise and ballistic missiles against Ukraine.
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- Two people were injured in Russia's Kursk region,
according to local Gov. Alexander Khinshtein, and some damage was reported in
the Voronezh region.
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- The Russian reports couldn't be independently verified.
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- Meanwhile, the Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 136
strike and decoy drones overnight.
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- Russian forces fired at least 20 Shahed drones at
Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city near the border with Russia, injuring
four people, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.
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- The drones started a fire at the biggest market in
Kharkiv, Barabashovo, destroying and damaging around 100 market stalls, he
said.
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- Seven civilians were hurt elsewhere in the Kharkiv region
by Russian glide bombs and drones, Syniehubov said.
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- In Kramatorsk, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region,
Russian Shahed drones killed one person and injured two others, Mayor Oleksandr
Honcharenko wrote on Facebook. The drones targeted residential and industrial
areas of the city, he said.
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- In the Odesa region, Russian drones struck residential
buildings and civilian infrastructure, killing one person, regional head Oleh
Kiper wrote on Telegram.
