Russia has commemorated its second victory day since he invaded Ukraine with a new wave of attacks against the neighboring country. Bombings that occurred just hours before Ursula Von der Leyen met with Volodimir Zelensky in Kyiv and Vladimir Putin attacked the West from Red Square in Moscow, shielded for fear of possible sabotage.

The attack perpetrated this Tuesday, in which the Ukrainian defenses managed to destroy 23 of the 25 missiles launched by Moscow, is the fifth so far this month, after a intensification of bombing by the Kremlin, which the day before launched its biggest drone attack since the war broke out.

Meanwhile, Russia celebrates its most important national holiday on Tuesday, in which it commemorates the victory against Nazi Germany in World War II. A date that, on this occasion, has been celebrated between strong security measuresafter denouncing the Russian authorities a alleged attack on the Russian president last week, for which they blame Ukraine and the United States.

Putin has used the occasion to charge against the west and report a “real war” against Russia by presiding over the military parade on Red Square, while the Ukrainian people, he has argued, has become “hostage” to Western ambitions.

A parade in which some 10,000 soldiers, including more than half a thousand fighters on the Ukrainian front, have paraded in the Russian capital, where the only foreign leaders present have been the leaders of Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan , Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Zelenski, with Von der Leyen in Kyiv

This May 9 is a key date on which the Ukrainian president, in turn, has further evidenced his distancing from Moscow and taken another step in his rapprochement with the European Union, the change the celebration of Victory Daywhich the former Soviet republic used to celebrate on the same day as Russia, May 8, to celebrate Europe Day instead this Tuesday.

An anniversary in which, precisely, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenhas landed in the Ukrainian capital to celebrate it together with the Ukrainian president and “prepare the ground” for the start of negotiations for the country’s accession to the community bloc.

All this, at a time when Ukraine is finalizing its counteroffensive to recover the occupied territories, while the conflict gives no sign of coming to an end nor is there a glimpse of the possibility of peace negotiations.