Putin marks Victory Day with Moscow military parade, speech

The Department of Homeland Security has approved nearly 6,000 Ukrainians to enter the U.S. through an online application system that lets them gain legal authorization to fly to U.S. airports and then stay with Americans who have agreed to sponsor them, the agency said Monday. 

The online portal, known as Uniting for Ukraine, launched April 25 as part of President Joe Biden’s stated goal to bring 100,000 people fleeing Russia’s deadly invasion to the U.S.

The launch of the website meant the closing of a popular but dangerous and illegal route many Ukrainians had taken via the U.S.-Mexico border, where, after having entered Mexico on tourist visas, they were transported from camps in Tijuana into California. After April 25, U.S. Border Patrol officers began turning back Ukrainians trying to cross the southern border. 

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Ukraine's ambassador to the United States is expected to meet with Republican legislators as Congress weighs an aid package to the embattled nation was not certain.

Oksana Makarova was scheduled to attend lunch with Senate Republicans Tuesday afternoon, two sources with knowledge of the event told NBC News.

As her nation continued to fend off Russia's invasion, congressional Democrats are proposing a $40 billion aid package to boost Ukraine military and humanitarian resources.

It would best the $33 billion package proposed by the administration of President Joe Biden.

The House is scheduled to take up the legislation Tuesday afternoon.

U.S. aid has been crucial to the country's survival against one of the world's best-equipped militaries, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The journalists of Ukraine were awarded a special Pulitzer Prize citation Monday, with the board saying they have been “doing honor to Ukraine and to journalists around the world.”

“The Pulitzer Board awards a special citation to the journalists of Ukraine for their courage, endurance, and commitment to truthful reporting during Vladimir Putin’s ruthless invasion of their country and his propaganda war in Russia,” the board wrote.

“Despite bombardment, abductions, occupation, and even deaths in their ranks, they have persisted in their effort to provide an accurate picture of a terrible reality, doing honor to Ukraine and to journalists around the world,” it wrote.

On Monday, the 2022 Pulitzer Prizes were announced. They include prizes for journalism as well as fiction, music, poetry and more.

President Joe Biden is urging Congress to quickly pass Ukraine aid in a move that would prioritize assistance for Kyiv over new Covid relief funding for the U.S.

“I call on Congress to pass the Ukrainian Supplemental funding bill immediately, and get it to my desk in the next few days,” Biden said in a statement Monday.

Biden and Democratic leaders had hoped to move a coronavirus aid package alongside the Ukraine aid, using the Ukrainian assistance as leverage to secure additional Covid funding, but Republicans balked, saying they would not approve new money to fight the pandemic without a vote on the president’s decision to end a Trump-era border policy known as Title 42.

That left Biden and Democratic leaders little choice but to separate the two packages.

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President Joe Biden on Monday signed a “lend-lease” act into law aimed at streamlining military support for Ukraine as it fights an attack Russia launched more than two months ago.

The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act, passed by the House 417-10 in late April, revives the famous World War II-era program to provide military support to allies.

Biden signed the measure the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Victory Day, which celebrates the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

Biden called the war in Ukraine “Putin’s war” and said it was “once more bringing wanton destruction into Europe.”

“Every day, Ukrainians pay with their lives, and they fight along — and the atrocities that the Russians are engaging in are just beyond the pale,” Biden said. “And the cost of the fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is even more costly. That’s why we’re staying in this.”

Biden signs bill to provide 'pivotal' support for Ukraine

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WASHINGTON — The White House said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was "perverting history" in his Victory Day remarks, in which he tried to justify his war in Ukraine.

“The day is supposed to be about celebrating peace and unity in Europe and the defeat of Nazis in World War II," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. "That is what is celebrated every year in Russia, as well.

"And instead, Putin is perverting history, changing history, or attempting to change it, I should say, to justify his unprovoked and unjustified war, which is responsible for catastrophic loss of life and immense human suffering.

"We’re continuing to do what we can to provide support for Ukraine at this pivotal moment, flowing security, economic and humanitarian assistance.”

President Joe Biden has asked congressional leaders to separate Ukraine aid from Covid-19 relief to pass the former without the partisan opposition to pandemic relief, a congressional source said.

Democratic leaders had hoped to pass the two aid packages together, but Republicans said they would not allow Covid relief to pass without a vote on Biden’s decision to end Title 42, a Trump-era Covid restriction at the border.

The $39.8 billion Ukraine package Democrats hope to pass contains increases above Biden's request of $3.4 billion more for food and $3.4 billion more for additional drawdown authority for military equipment, two aides said. The original request from the Biden administration for Ukraine aid had been $33 billion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the creation of a working group on international payments whose tasks will include figuring out terms for transactions with “unfriendly” states.

Putin said in March that Russia, the world’s largest natural gas producer, would require countries it deems hostile to pay for fuel in rubles by opening accounts at Gazprombank and making payments in euros or dollars, to be converted into Russian currency.

Poland and Bulgaria refused to comply, and the Russian energy giant Gazprom cut them off last month. The Kremlin has said the same will happen to anyone else who rejects the new payment terms.

The Russians have added extra battalions, but their offensive in the Donbas region is literally stuck in the mud, a senior U.S. defense official said.

“I would not characterize it as successful, not at all,” the official said. “There’s been a lot of back and forth on these small towns and villages. ... The Russians have not been able to make a lot of progress at all."

Vladmir Putin's forces have been stymied by stiff Ukrainian resistance and by the warming weather, which forces them to stick to paved roads rather than risk getting bogged down in the muddy countryside, the official said.

In addition, the official said, there have been reports that some frustrated Russian officers are not "obeying orders with full alacrity."

Russia has about 97 operational BTGs, or battalion tactical groups, in Ukraine, five more than last week.

At least a million Ukrainians have been “forcibly relocated” to Russia, a local human rights official claimed Monday.

“Not only are the occupiers hiding their crimes, but also relocating everyone they deem unreliable in an unknown director,” Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsman for human rights, said at a briefing.

“We have proof that forceful deportation was prepared beforehand,” Denisova said. “There are facts that confirm that Russia had directives for their districts on how many Ukrainians and where to deport” them.

About 20,000 Ukrainians are being held and vetted in “filtration camps,” and most are to be sent to Russia, Denisova said.

As for the rest, “their fate remains unknown,” she said.

NBC News has not been able to confirm the claims. Reports of Ukrainians’ behind rousted from their homeland and deported deep into Russia began surfacing not long after Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded the country.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said it’s up to Ukraine alone to decide on its negotiations with Russia.

“We are not though at war with Russia,” Macron said in an address Monday at the European Parliament discussing the continent’s future. “We are fighting in Europe to maintain the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, for the return of peace to our continent. And it’s up to Ukraine only to decide on negotiating conditions with Russia.”

The war has changed European security considerations, Macron acknowledged in the speech. “When peace returns to European soil, we will have to build new security balances,” he said.

Macron, who was re-elected last month, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin just before Russia invaded in a bid to stop the conflict. He has spoken several times with Putin on the phone since then.

Three civilians with gunshot wounds to the head were found buried on the side of a highway in Makariv, around 35 miles east of Kyiv, Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said Monday on Facebook.

“According to preliminary information, servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces shot three men in the head during the occupation of the settlement,” the prosecutor general’s office said. “The pre-trial investigation is ongoing.”

Investigators in Ukraine are looking into potential war crimes committed by Russia since its military assault began on Feb. 24. In addition, the United Nations has established an inquiry into potential violations of human rights by Russian forces in Ukraine, as has the International Criminal Court. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed the urgency of unblocking Ukraine’s ports for wheat exports in a conversation with European Council President Charles Michel on Monday.

“It is important to prevent a food crisis in the world caused by Russia’s aggressive actions,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on Telegram.

Michel said during a visit to the port city of Odesa on the Black Sea Monday that a global response was needed to the Russian blockade.

“I saw silos full of grain, wheat and corn ready for export,” he wrote on Twitter. “This badly needed food is stranded because of the Russian war and blockade of Black sea ports. Causing dramatic consequences for vulnerable countries.”

MILAN — Italian Premier Mario Draghi meets with U.S. President Joe Biden this week in Washington as Europe faces another “whatever it takes” moment with Russia’s war in Ukraine raging on its eastern flank.

Both Rome and Washington will emphasize their historic friendship and shared desire to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s two-month-old invasion when the leaders meet on Tuesday. Energy, climate change and promoting global economic prosperity also are on the agenda.

Still, there are differences in tone over the war, and public sentiment in Italy against sending arms to Ukraine is growing.

Draghi is pushing for even a limited truce to allow talks to resume, mindful also of the impact on Italy should the war spill over Ukraine’s borders. Statements by Biden and his emissaries have been more aggressive, suggesting both regime change and the goal of weakening Russia.

These differences reflect not only Italy’s geographic closeness to the fighting, but also its historic political and economic ties with Russia. Italy gets 40 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and economic trade last year amounted to 20 billion euros.

“There are two currents regarding Russia,” Sergio Romano, a Cold War-era Italian ambassador to Moscow, told The Associated Press. “There is the position of the countries that see in the war in Ukraine the possibility, or the hope, of the diminishment of Russian power. I think this current is strong in the U.S.

“I don’t think this is the position of the Italian government, which in the past has had cordial and positive relations with Russia.”

Russian Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreev is covered with red paint in Warsaw on Monday.  Maciek Luczniewski / AP

WARSAW, Poland — Protesters opposed to the war in Ukraine threw red paint on the Russian ambassador to Poland on Monday, preventing him from paying respects at a Warsaw cemetery to Red Army soldiers who died in World War II.

Ambassador Sergey Andreev arrived at the cemetery to lay flowers on Victory Day, which marks the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allies. The holiday was celebrated with pomp in a parade at Red Square in Moscow.

As he arrived at the Soviet Soldiers Cemetery in the Polish capital, Andreev was met by hundreds of activists opposed to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The protesters carried Ukrainian flags and chanted “fascist” and “murderer” at him, while some were dressed in white sheets smeared with blood, symbolizing the Ukrainian victims of Russia’s war. Other people in his entourage were also seen splattered with what appeared to be red paint.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to justify his war in Ukraine on Monday, blaming the West and linking the conflict to World War II — but he did not announce any escalation despite fears from Ukraine and its allies.

Putin justifies ‘forced, timely’ invasion of Ukraine as response to Western threats

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In a speech at Moscow’s Victory Day parade to celebrate the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany, Putin framed the struggling military campaign as a continuation of that historic fight.

He accused the West of neglecting Russia’s security demands prior to the invasion, reiterating Moscow’s claim that it was acting to counter a growing threat near its borders from the NATO alliance and saying that a clash with what he called Ukraine’s “neo-Nazis,” backed by the West, was inevitable.

“Russia gave a pre-emptive rebuff to aggression,” he said. “It was a forced, timely and only right decision.”

But in a rare nod to the scale of that sacrifice, Putin acknowledged Russian losses in Ukraine. 

“The death of every soldier and officer is a tragedy for all of us and irreparable loss for their families,” he said, adding that the state will do everything to help their loved ones, especially their children.

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Russian forces in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol staged a march to mark Victory Day, hailing the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II.

It took place as hundreds of residents killed in the current war were taken to a mass grave in the village of Vynohradne, the City Council said in a post on Telegram. Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to Mariupol’s mayor, said in a post on the social media site that Russians in the city staged a march with “300 meters of stripped rags.”

“The excitement and joy on the street along the column is not particularly noticeable,” he wrote. “People are lured to the square because of the promises of field cuisine and additional sets of food.”

Russian forces are in control of much of the city, with the exception of the Azovstal steel plant, where the last pocket of resistance is holding off Russian forces. “It is difficult to understand how our heroes repel attack after attack,” Andriushchenko wrote.

 Alexey Maishev / Sputnik via AP

Parade organizers said it was due to bad weather. The skies in Moscow were largely blue with scattered clouds and some wind.

A planned flyover showing off the Russian military’s aircraft at the parade marking the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis in World War II was canceled on Monday. 

Seventy-seven planes helicopters marking 77 years since the victory were scheduled to take part, including what Russia called “the largest transport helicopter in the world.” Eight fighter jets were planned to fly over Red Square in the form of the letter Z in support of Russian servicemen in Ukraine. Another six planes were set to paint the sky in the colors of the Russian tricolor.

Prior to the event, the military had announced that the “Doomsday” plane equipped to take command in the event of a nuclear war would be on display. The last time it participated in the parade was in 2010, according to the military. 

KYIV — Canada will help Ukraine work out options on how to export stored grain to uphold global food security that has been shaken by Russia’s invasion of the country, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said late Sunday.

Nearly 25 million tonnes of grains are stuck in Ukraine and unable to leave the country due to infrastructure challenges and blocked Black Sea ports including Mariupol, a U.N. food agency official said last week. Mariupol has endured the most destructive fighting of the 10-week war.

Food prices soared to record highs in March in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world’s fourth-largest exporter of corn in the 2020-21 season and the No. 6 wheat exporter. Prices eased slightly in April.

“We know people around the world are going to be starving because of the actions of Russia,” Trudeau told Reuters in an interview.

“There is grain waiting to be shipped in Ukraine. We have to make sure that Russia doesn’t prevent the grain that the world needs from getting out to the world.”

Russia’s stockpile of precision guided munitions has most likely been heavily depleted during its invasion of Ukraine, the U.K.’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing Monday.

The loss of these modern weapons has forced Russia to rely on aging munitions that are less accurate and more easily intercepted, the military assessment said.

“Russia will likely struggle to replace the precision weaponry it has already expended,” according to the briefing posted on Twitter.

The assessment came as Russia paraded its military might in a parade in Moscow marking the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy linked the country’s current fight against Russia to World War II as he remembered the fight against the Nazis on the day marking the victory.

“Very soon there will be two Victory Days in Ukraine,” he said in a post on Telegram. “We won then. We will win now.”

TOKYO — Japan will take time to phase out Russian oil imports after agreeing on a ban with other Group of Seven (G7) nations to counter Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Monday.

The G7 nations committed to the move “in a timely and orderly fashion” at an online meeting on Sunday to put further pressure on President Vladimir Putin, although members such as resource-poor Japan depend heavily on Russian fuel.

“For a country heavily dependent on energy imports, it’s a very difficult decision. But G7 coordination is most important at a time like now,” Kishida told reporters, repeating comments he made at the G7 meeting.

“As for the timing of the reduction or stoppage of [Russian] oil imports, we will consider it while gauging the actual situation,” he said. “We will take our time to take steps towards a phase-out.” He did not elaborate.

Russian honour guards march on Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9, 2022.  Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP - Getty Images

Soldiers drove tanks, rocket launchers, missiles and other military equipment through Moscow’s Red Square as the country marked the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II with a massive parade on Monday.

The show of military hardware and strength, exhibited with a military band playing in the background, came after straight rows of soldiers in ceremonial dress marched through the square. The Kremlin said 11,000 people and 130 pieces of equipment took part in the parade.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave a short speech linking the war in Ukraine to World War II, sat with other high ranking members of the military watching the display. Stands filled with spectators also observed the spectacle.

Russia has suffered large losses of equipment and soldiers during its invasion of Ukraine, launched in February.

In a show of pomp and pageantry, Russia marked the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II with its annual military parade in Moscow.

Rows of soldiers in ceremonial dress lined the street and Red Square with a large military band playing in advance of a speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin said 11,000 people and 130 pieces of equipment took part in the parade.

Hailing the day as a “triumph of our unified Soviet Union,” Putin linked the current conflict in Ukraine with World War II.

“You are fighting for your motherland, for its future, so no one will forget the lessons of the Second World War,” he told the troops, before observing a minute of silence. After speaking, Putin watched as military groups paraded past, holding their flags.

 Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images

Monday is shaping up to be a potentially pivotal day for Ukraine. 

Known as Victory Day, May 9 is a national holiday in Russia commemorating the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, typically marked by an elaborate military parade in Moscow’s Red Square surveyed by senior Kremlin officials.

Western officials have voiced concerns that President Vladimir Putin will use the occasion to officially declare war on Ukraine or otherwise escalate his military campaign. But experts say that after more than two months of thwarted offensives, Putin is left with limited options.

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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented a medal Sunday to Ukraine’s famous mine-sniffing dog, Patron, and his owner to recognize their dedicated service since Russia’s invasion.

The Jack Russell terrier has been credited with detecting more than 200 explosives and preventing their detonation since the start of the war, quickly becoming a canine symbol of Ukrainian patriotism.

Zelenskyy made the award at a news conference in Kyiv with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Patron, which, loosely translated, means “cartridge” or “bullet” in Ukrainian, barked and wagged his tail, prompting laughter from the audience. Trudeau patted his pockets as if he were looking for a dog treat.

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“Today, I want to award those Ukrainian heroes who are already clearing our land of mines. And together with our heroes, a wonderful little sapper — Patron — who helps not only to neutralize explosives but also to teach our children the necessary safety rules in areas where there is a mine threat,” Zelenskyy said in a statement after the ceremony.