Russia launched large-scale missile strikes on Kyiv and across Ukraine early Monday morning, May 8 as Moscow prepares to celebrate the  ‘Victory Day’ holiday that marks the anniversary of its defeat of Nazi Germany.

Ukranian officials say at least five people were injured due to strikes on Kyiv, while Russian missiles set ablaze a foodstuff warehouse in the Black Sea city of Odesa.

 

Moscow is preparing for its Victory Day parade on Tuesday, a key anniversary for President Vladimir Putin who says Russia would defeat a Ukraine filled with Nazis, falsefuly comparing the Ukranian government led by Volodimir Zelenskyy to Afolf Hitler’s Nazi regime.

Russia intensified shelling of Bakhmut hoping to take it by Tuesday, Ukraine’s top general in charge of the defence of the besieged city said, after Russia’s Wagner mercenary group announced on Saturday ditch plans to withdraw from it.

Three people were injured in blasts in Kyiv’s Solomyanskyi district and two others were injured when drone wreckage fell onto the Sviatoshyn district, both west of the capital’s centre, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram messaging channel.

 

The drone wreckage fell on a runway of the Zhuliany airport, one of the two passenger airports of the Ukrainian capital, causing no fire, but emergency services were working on the site according to reports.

It also said that in Kyiv’s central Shevchenkivskyi district, drone debris seemed to have hit a two-storey building, causing damages. There was no immediate information about potential casualties.

Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, posted on his Telegram channel photos of a large structure fully engulfed in flames, in what he said was a Russian attack on a foodstuff warehouse, among others.

Reports also emerged of sounds of explosions in the southern region of Kherson and in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeast.

 

Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed local official in Zaporizhzhia, said that Russian forces hit a warehouse and Ukrainian troops’ position in Orikhiv, a small city in the region.

 

Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, calling it a “special military operation” to defend Russia from neo-Nazis in Ukraine, but Kyiv and its allies say it was an unprovoked, land grab.