Watch live as Vladimir Putin leads Russia’s Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on Friday (9 May).
Russia will mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War today with a grand military parade being attended by China's Xi Jinping.
Putin, the longest-serving Kremlin chief since Josef Stalin, will speak at a 7am GMT parade where thousands of Russian soldiers usually march by and drive military hardware such as intercontinental ballistic missiles and tanks past Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square.
The Kremlin says the attendance of Russian allies such as Xi, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and several dozen leaders from the former Soviet Union, Africa, Asia and Latin America shows Russia is not isolated from the wider world even if Moscow's former World War Western allies want to stay away. From Europe, the leaders of Serbia and Slovakia will attend.
Russian officials have ensured security is very tight in Moscow this weekend as fear of Ukrainian drone attacks loom.
Mr Putin proposed a 72-hour ceasefire would run on 8-10 May, though Ukraine said Russia had broken the ceasefire within hours of it coming into effect.
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