War: Putin celebrates Victory Day as Russia ramps up its attack on Eastern Ukraine

The Victory Day Parade is set to showcase Russia's military strength after bombs killed 60 people taking refuge in a school

President Vladimir Putin will preside over the anniversary celebrations of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany on Monday as Russian forces intensified attacks on Ukraine in one of the deadliest conflicts in Europe since World War II.

The parade comes a day after Russian forces bombed a village school in eastern Ukraine, killing about 60 people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

The governor of the Luhansk region said that about 90 people took shelter in the school in Bilohorivka on Saturday when it was bombed

"As a result of a Russian attack on Bilohorivka in the Luhansk region, about 60 people were killed, civilians who simply hid in the school to protect themselves from shelling," Zelenskyy said in his late-night video address. Moscow did not respond to the news.

Putin, Russia's leader since 1999, has in recent years used Victory Day to needle the West from a Red Square ahead of a parade of troops, tanks, missiles and ICBMs.

This year, a flyby over the nine domes of St. Basil's Cathedral will include supersonic fighters, strategic bombers and, for the first time since 2010, the Il-80 “Doomsday” command plane, which would carry Russia's top forces in the event of a nuclear war.

Putin has repeatedly compared the war in Ukraine - which he misrepresents as fighting dangerous "Nazi"-inspired nationalists in Ukraine - to the challenge the Soviet Union faced when Adolf Hitler invaded in 1941.

"Our common duty is to prevent the renaissance of Nazism, which brought so much suffering to people in different countries," Putin said in a message to the people of 12 former Soviet republics, which includes Ukraine and Georgia.

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