President Vladimir Putin used his Victory Day speech Monday to try to channel Russian pride in defeating Nazi Germany into support for the invasion of Ukraine. But contrary to some expectations, he did not make any new announcements signaling a mass mobilization for the war effort or an escalation of the onslaught.
Speaking in Moscow's Red Square on Russia's holiday marking the anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II, Putin steered clear of battlefield specifics or uttering the word "Ukraine."
He said Russian troops in eastern Ukraine were fighting "on their land," an indication that Putin had no plans to relinquish control of the territory his forces had taken in recent months.
"The danger was rising by the day," Putin said. "Russia has given a preemptive response to aggression. It was forced, timely and the only correct decision."
The speech was a call to battle, calling Ukraine's defenders "Nazis" while evoking Russia's World War II history. He also described May 9, 1945, as a day of triumph for "our united Soviet people."
"You are fighting for the Motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War II," Putin said, addressing Russian forces in Ukraine. "So that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers and Nazis."
Putin mentioned Belarusian and Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Minsk, Sevastopol and Kharkiv among the ones that Red Army soldiers fighting for their "Fatherland" defended.
In a rare acknowledgment of the Ukraine war's toll, Putin said the death of every soldier was a "grief for all of us" and promised that the government would do "everything to care for" the families of the dead.
He said he had signed a decree Monday to give "special support to the children of dead and wounded comrades."
Putin spoke from his rostrum set up by the Lenin Mausoleum, overseeing Moscow's traditional Victory Day military parade. It featured 11,000 participants and 131 armored vehicles, but an aircraft flyover was canceled because of bad weather, the Kremlin said.
The Russian leader did not renew his implicit threats of nuclear war. But Putin did lash out at the United States, depicting the country as the true aggressor and Russia as a stronghold of patriotism and "traditional values."
"The United States of America, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, started talking about its exclusivity -- thereby humiliating not only the whole world, but also its satellites, who have to pretend that they do not notice anything and meekly swallow it all," Putin said. "But we are a different country. Russia has a different character. We will never give up love for the Motherland, faith and traditional values, the customs of our ancestors, respect for all peoples and cultures."
As Putin laid a wreath in Moscow, air raid sirens echoed again in the Ukrainian capital. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in his own Victory Day address that his country would eventually defeat the Russians.
"Very soon there will be two Victory Days in Ukraine," he said in a video. He added: "We are fighting for freedom, for our children, and therefore, we will win."
A Zelenskyy adviser interpreted Putin's speech as indicating that Russia has no interest in escalating the war through the use of nuclear weapons or direct engagement with NATO.
Speaking late Monday in an online interview, Oleksiy Arestovych pointed to Putin's statement that Russia would honor the memory of those who fought in World War II by doing "everything so that the horror of a global war does not happen again."
SERBIAN, BOSNIAN RALLIES
Pro-Russia marches were staged in Serbia and the Serb-run entity in Bosnia -- both traditional allies of Moscow in the Balkans -- amid ceremonies Monday.
Serbia organized military jet flyovers and officials laid wreaths as part of the celebrations. A Serbian Cabinet minister and Russia's ambassador to Serbia joined dozens of people in the Moscow-backed march in Belgrade, an annual event mirroring the one held.
Serbia has joined condemnation at the United Nations of the Russian attack, but has refused to impose sanctions against Moscow -- despite formally seeking to join the European Union.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Belgrade criticized Serbia in a statement, saying embassy officials marked Victory Day on Sunday -- and without the presence of Serbian officials.
The embassy, the statement said, "does not have the moral right and human desire to honor the victims of World War II together with the representatives of the criminal Putin regime."
Despite Russia's crackdown on dissent, antiwar sentiment has seeped through. Dozens of protesters were detained around the country on Victory Day and editors at a pro-Kremlin media outlet revolted by briefly publishing a few dozen stories criticizing Putin and the invasion.
In Warsaw, antiwar protesters splattered Russia's ambassador to Poland with what appeared to be red paint as he arrived at a cemetery to pay respects to Red Army soldiers who died during World War II.
FIGHTING IN UKRAINE
On the ground, meanwhile, intense fighting raged in Ukraine's east, the vital Black Sea port of Odesa in the south came under repeated missile attack, and Russian forces sought to finish off the Ukrainian defenders making their last stand at a steel plant in Mariupol.
After fierce resistance forced the Kremlin to abandon its effort to storm Kyiv over a month ago, Moscow's forces have concentrated on capturing the Donbas, Ukraine's eastern industrial region. But the fighting there has been a back-and-forth, village-by-village slog.
Russia has about 97 battalion tactical groups in Ukraine, largely in the east and the south, a slight increase over last week, according to a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon's assessment. Each unit has roughly 1,000 troops, according to the Pentagon.
The official said that overall, the Russian effort in the Donbas hasn't achieved any significant progress in recent days and continues to face stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces.
The Ukrainian military warned of a high probability of missile strikes around the holiday, and some cities imposed curfews or warned people not to gather in public places.
The U.S. official said roughly 2,000 Russian troops were around Mariupol and the city was being pounded by airstrikes. As many as 2,000 Ukrainian defenders were believed to be holding out at the steel plant, the city's last stronghold of resistance.
Odesa, too, has increasingly been bombarded in recent days. The Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired seven missiles from the air at Odesa on Monday night, hitting a shopping center and a warehouse. One person was killed and five were wounded, the military said.
The war in the country long known as the "breadbasket of Europe" has disrupted global food supplies.
LITHUANIAN WARNING
Lithuania's top diplomat said Monday that removing Putin from power is the only way to protect the West and its allies from future threats from Moscow, urging an even tougher stance than the U.S. and many NATO allies have been willing to pursue since the invasion.
"From our standpoint, up until the point the current regime is not in power, the countries surrounding it will be, to some extent, in danger. Not just Putin but the whole regime because ... another Putin might rise into his place," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in an interview with The Associated Press in Washington.
"If one thing was proven to those who doubted it after 2008 in Georgia, in 2014 when the first war in Ukraine started, it is that Russia is an aggressive country. That's very clear," he said.
Lithuania is one of the three Baltic states that among NATO allies are particularly concerned about possible Russian designs on forcefully returning them to Moscow's rule.
Landsbergis said Lithuania was pleased with the support that its NATO allies have offered to it and the other countries in the alliance's eastern flank, but that they needed more. He said Lithuania, along with fellow Baltic nations Estonia and Latvia, would be pressing NATO to supply more air and maritime defenses as well as permanent deployments of troops on their territory when alliance leaders meet in Madrid in late June.
He said the Madrid summit should be a venue where the particular vulnerabilities of the Baltics are taken into account and addressed.
"It has to be reflected that NATO has to change its its posture in eastern flank more. In the Baltic states we kind of we feel that we are approaching this point where we are more and more resembling the feeling of West Berlin and during the years of the Cold War," he said.
JAPAN BANNING OIL
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Monday that Japan will in principle ban Russian oil imports, at an online meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations.
"This is a very tough decision, but the solidarity of the G7 is more important than anything else," Kishida said.
The prime minister pointed out that Japan largely depends on imports for most of its energy resources. After the meeting, Kishida told the press that the Japanese government will proceed with the envisaged embargo in stages.
"[We] feel the importance of standing in solidarity with the international community to impose tough sanctions [against Russia] in the face of growing concerns over an unstable international order," Kishida said at the prime minister's office.
According to Kishida, Japan "will take time to phase out" Russian oil imports, further considering reductions and when to stop imports entirely.
Kishida stressed that Japan will maintain its interests in the Sakhalin-1 energy development project on the Russian Far East island of Sakhalin, among other projects.
"Oil imports from the interests contribute to the stable supply of low-cost energy over the long term, and that minimizes the negative impact on people's lives and business activities," said Kishida.
Information for this article was contributed by Anton Troianovski of The New York Times; by Elena Becatoros, Jon Gambrell, Yesica Fisch, David Keyton, Yuras Karmanau, Mstyslav Chernov, Lolita C. Baldor, Jovana Gec, Matthew Lee and staff members of The Associated Press; and by staff members of The Washington Post.