Russia has dismissed speculation that it will declare all-out war in Ukraine in the coming days as “nonsense”.
Moscow has up until now denied it was at war, instead referring to the invasion as a “special military operation”.
But Western officials have speculated that President Vladimir Putin could use the 9 May Victory Parade to announce an escalation of military action.
Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, however, said there was no truth to the rumours “at all”.
UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, said last week that the Moscow parade – commemorating the defeat of the Nazis and World War Two – might be used to drum up support for a mass mobilisation of troops and renewed push into Ukraine.
“I would not be surprised, and I don’t have any information about this, that he is probably going to declare on this May Day that ‘we are now at war with the world’s Nazis and we need to mass mobilise the Russian people’,” he told LBC radio.
Russian officials only referred to the invasion as a “special military operation” to “demilitarise” or “de-Nazify” the country, referencing a baseless claim about Nazis in the Ukrainian government which Moscow used to justify the invasion.
As well as the annual parade in Moscow, there wee also long-standing reports that the Kremlin was planning some sort of additional parade in the city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine, almost all of which was now under Russian control. Ukrainian forces remained in one area of the city – a vast industrial steelworks called Azovstal.
Latest reports suggested that after the recent successful evacuation of some civilians, attacks on the steelworks have resumed and contact has been lost with the last remaining soldiers inside.
Ukrainian officials say the streets of the city centre were being cleared of debris, bodies, and unexploded bombs. Large parts of the city lied in ruins, after Russian forces bombarded it relentlessly for weeks under siege.
Ukrainian politician, Alyona Shkrum, told the BBC she was expecting things to become more difficult alongside Russia’s victory day celebrations.
“For Putin and for the empire he’s trying to build, basically this is a symbolic day, right?” she said.
“So he takes some kind of victory day and he turns it into a big fight right now against Nazis, which is obviously Russian propaganda and completely ridiculous”. -BBC
