The Victory Day events in Moscow may have passed without being disrupted by Ukrainian drone strikes, as demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump in his ceasefire announcement on May 8, but the Russian Defense Ministry counted nearly 9,000 ceasefire violations of the truce otherwise. “Despite the announcement of the truce regime, the Ukrainian armed formations carried out strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles and artillery at positions of Russian troops, as well as against civilian objects in the republics of Crimea, Adygea, and Chechen Republic, Perm, Stavropol and Krasnodar regions, Tula, Kaluga, Smolensk, Orel, Moscow, Voronezh, Rostov, Ryazan, Lipetsk, Bryansk, Belgorod, and Kursk regions,” it said in a statement.
The ministry reported that Ukrainian forces carried out 1,173 strikes against Russian troops with artillery guns, MLRS combat vehicles, mortars, and tanks, and 7,151 drone strikes. In addition, Ukrainian troops launched 12 attacks against Russian positions. “A total of 8,970 ceasefire violations were recorded in the special military operation zone,” the ministry reported.
“Under these conditions, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation responded to ceasefire violations in kind,” the statement reported. “Retaliatory strikes were delivered at the firing positions of MLRS combat vehicles, artillery, and mortars. Command and control posts and launch points of unmanned aerial vehicles were hit.”
