Russia has kicked off its annual Victory Day military parade in Moscow to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany during the second world war.

The parade, scaled back this year due to security concerns, started at about 10am (07:00 GMT) in Red Square, with a military formation bearing the Russian flag.

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Security was tight as President Vladimir Putin was set to speak on the occasion, viewed as Russia’s most significant secular holiday.

Putin, in power for more than a quarter-century, has regularly used Victory Day to showcase the country’s military might and rally support for his war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year. But this year, for the first time in nearly 20 years, the parade will take place without tanks, missiles and other heavy weapons, aside from a traditional flyover of combat jets.

Officials said the sudden change of format was due to the “current operational situation” and pointed to the threat of Ukrainian attacks. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the authorities have taken “additional security measures”.

United States President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to his request for a ceasefire running Saturday through Monday and an exchange of prisoners, declaring that the break in fighting could be the “beginning of the end” of the war.

Russia threatens Kyiv if Victory Day disrupted

Zelenskyy, who said earlier this week that the Russian authorities “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” on May 9, followed up on Trump’s statement by issuing a decree mockingly permitting Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations on Saturday, declaring Red Square temporarily off-limits for Ukrainian strikes.

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Peskov shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.” “We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Russian authorities warned that if Ukraine attempts to disrupt Saturday’s festivities, Russia will carry out a “massive missile strike on the center of Kyiv”.

Victory Day is also observed in other former Soviet states such as Belarus and Kazakhstan. The Soviet Union lost 27 million people in 1941-45 in what it calls the Great Patriotic War, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche and remains a rare point of consensus in the nation’s divisive history under communist rule.