(Kyiv) Russia is planning a military parade in the long-besieged port of Mariupol for May 9, the day Moscow celebrates victory over Nazi Germany, Ukrainian intelligence said on Wednesday.
Posted at 7:32
According to the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service (GUR), Deputy Director of the Russian Presidential Administration Sergei Kirienko arrived in Mariupol to prepare for this parade.
“The main mission of Mr. Putin’s official is to prepare the May 9 ceremonies,” reads a GUR statement on Telegram.
Mariupol, a port city in southeastern Ukraine, “will become a center of celebrations,” the statement added. “The main avenues of the city are urgently cleaned, the debris and the bodies of the dead removed, as well as the ammunition which did not explode”, specifies the press release.
Russian viewers will see reports of Mariupol residents’ “joy” at seeing Russians arrive in their city, he added. The feast of May 9 is each year the occasion of a great military parade in Moscow, on Red Square.
Also according to the GUR, “a large-scale propaganda campaign is underway” among the population of the city, now estimated by the Ukrainian authorities at between 100,000 and 120,000 people, against nearly half a million before the war. .
Asked about preparations for May 9, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu did not explicitly mention the possibility of such a parade in Mariupol.
“This year, military parades will take place in 28 Russian cities”, he only indicated, specifying that “nearly 65,000 people, about 2,400 types of weapons and military equipment and more than 460 aircraft will be mobilized This year “.
Mariupol is almost entirely under Russian military control. Only the immense Azovstal metallurgical complex, where the last Ukrainian fighters and civilians are entrenched, has not yet been completely taken by the forces of Moscow.
A Ukrainian commander of the Azov regiment defending the steel plant said on Tuesday that the Russians had launched the assault on the site, but the Kremlin denied this information on Wednesday.