AL HAYAT - Russia, Ukraine trade attacks ahead of Kremlin's WWII celebrations

Ukraine never said it would abide by Moscow's call to halt strikes and lambasted Russian leader Vladimir Putin for only wanting to pause fighting so he could stage a grand parade on Red Square on Saturday.

Kyiv said Moscow ignored a Ukrainian proposal to halt fighting earlier this week -- a counter-offer for a short-term ceasefire that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cast as a test of whether the Kremlin was serious about providing a brief respite in the four-year war.

Russia has threatened a massive strike on the heart of Kyiv if it disrupts the Victory Day parade on Saturday, repeatedly urging foreign diplomats to leave the Ukrainian capital ahead of time.

On the streets of Kyiv, some brushed off the Russian threats.

"Nothing new will happen," Vasyl Kobzar, a 40-year-old bank employee, told AFP. "I'm worried, but it's become routine, unfortunately."

Engineer Viktoria Dorofeeva, 30, said she had no plans to leave the city.

"I'll just go to a shelter; that's the most I'll do. If we don't strike, they'll strike anyway."

Ukrainian officials told AFP there had been no orders for additional security measures to be taken so far.

"We're just giving (the Russians) the finger," one lawmaker, speaking anonymously, said.

- Fighting continues -

Ukraine's air force said Russia fired 67 drones overnight -- the lowest number in almost a month.

"Despite the declared ceasefire, the enemy has not reduced the intensity of assault operations," Zelensky said.

"As we did over the past 24 hours, Ukraine will respond in kind today as well," he wrote on X earlier, also saying Russian forces continued to press on the front line.

Russia's defence ministry said it had downed more than 400 Ukrainian drones since midnight, and that its troops were "responding symmetrically".

Zelensky hailed a Ukrainian strike on an oil depot in the Yaroslavl region, around 200 kilometres (about 125 miles) northeast of Moscow.

Kyiv's SBU security service said it had struck a refinery in Russia's Perm region, some 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) from the border, for the third time in the last few weeks.

Some 13 airports in southern Russia were closed on Friday after a Ukrainian drone hit an air navigation centre in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Moscow's transport ministry said.

- Zelensky warning, Russian threat -

Ukraine had blasted Russia's temporary truce as a propaganda measure to protect the victory parade on May 9 -- one of the most important patriotic events for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Hours before Russia's ceasefire began, Zelensky warned Moscow's allies against attending the parade.

"We have also received messages from some states close to Russia, saying that their representatives plan to be in Moscow... We do not recommend it," Zelensky said.

Russia has twice this week vowed a huge strike on Kyiv if the Red Square parade -- where Putin will deliver a defiant address linking Soviet victory over Nazi Germany with his invasion of Ukraine -- is attacked on Saturday.

Zelensky will stay in Kyiv over the weekend, a senior source close to the Ukrainian president told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The EU, Britain and Germany were among the foreign missions in the Ukrainian capital that rejected and condemned the Russian threat.

Russia's ally Iran meanwhile advised its citizens to "stay away from government and military locations" on May 8 and 9, its embassy in Kyiv said on Telegram.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides and tens of thousands of civilians, most in Ukraine, have been killed since Putin ordered the invasion in February 2022.

- Parade at risk -

Putin has made memory of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany a central narrative of his 25-year rule, staging massive parades in central Moscow on May 9 and invoking it to justify his invasion of Ukraine.

But the Kremlin is on edge after a spate of Ukrainian long-range attacks on energy facilities in recent weeks.

Military hardware will be absent from the parade for the first time in almost two decades and only a handful of low-key foreign guests will attend.

Moscow has also been intermittently shutting off mobile internet ahead of the celebrations.

Talks on ending what has spiralled into Europe's worst conflict since World War II have shown little progress and have been sidelined by the Iran conflict.

L.Turki--al-Hayat