that did not happen. the kremlin blaming bad weather for that. as putin was speaking in moscow, ukraine s president released his own victory day message. translator: very soon there will be two victory days in ukraine, and someone won t have any. we won then, and we will win now. happy victory over naziism day. u.s. diplomats return to kyiv for the first time since the war began. it s a big step towards officially reopening the embassy. let s go right to cnn s matthew chance live for us in moscow. mat matthew, what stood out to you about putin s speech this morning is this. this morning? look, first of all, the atmosphere, the spectacle of the display of russian military might was as we expected it to be, quite dramatic. we saw thousands of russian troops on the cobbles of red square chanting patriotic slogans, military bans playing patriotic kind of war songs. there was a march passed and a salute taken by by president putin as the crowd cheered and applauded and t
next to our borders. in ukraine this weekend, relenltless russian shelling, dozens now feared dead after a school where at least 90 people were said to be sheltering was bombed. in the southwest, russian forces firing several missiles into the odesa resquon. and we have new heartbreaking video out of mariupol. the city council says this video shows more mass graves. cnn able to independently verify who took this video and when. however, this is part of a broader pattern, civilian suffering and mass graves following. president zelenskyy delivered his own victory speech today sounding confident that his country will win this war. we are fighting for our children s freedom. and therefore, we will win. we will never forget what our an sets sorts did in world war ii which killed 8 million ukrainians. there thereby two victory days in ukraine and someone won t have any. the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. is now weighing in. reacting to pooutsen s speech for the first time in an
about this conflict in ukraine. what can you tell us about putin s rhetoric today and the reaction? well, this was a much-anticipated event. speculation, the victory day parade would be used to make an important announcement about what russia calls the special military operation in ukraine. possibly a formal declaration of war or a mass mobilization of troops. but that didn t happen. what we did witness, though, was a spectacular display of russian military might, even though the air display was cancelled because of bad weather. 11,000 troops marched over the cobbles of red square followed by columns of tanks and rocket launchers and, of course, those intercontinental ballistic missiles. putin tried to justify the conflict in ukraine, that russia was facing an imminent attack and it had to act preemptively, claims that have been disputed by ukraine and by its allies. he also drew parallels with the soviet victory over nazi germany in the 40s which is what victory day is mea
described and has prohibited the broadcast of information the government regards as false. with that matthew filed this report just moments ago. reporter: this was a much anticipated event amid speculation that the victory day parade would be used to make an important announcement about what russia calls its special military operation in ukraine. possibly a formal declaration of war or a mass mobilization of troops. but neither of those things happened. what we did witness was a spectacular display of russian military might. even though the air display was cancelled because of bad weather, 11,000 troops marched over the cobbles of red square followed by columns of tanks, rocket launchers and interballistic missiles. vladimir putin repeated claims trying to justify the conflict in ukraine that russia was faising an eminent attack and that it had to act preemptively. he also drew parallels between the soviet victory over germany in the 1940s which is what victory day is meant
ukraine s president, volodymyr zelenskyy, who declared the victory in the end will belong to ukraine. now, putin did not declare war or try to mobilize more troops, as analysts suspected. he also canceled the victory day air shows across russia that had been scheduled. the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. believes this shows that putin recognizes that his war is not going well. president putin has recognized he has no victory to celebrate. his efforts in ukraine have not succeeded. he was not able to go into ukraine and bring them to their knees in a few days and have them surrender. he gave up on taking kyiv. in the east, ukrainians are fighting back in the luhansk region after russian units built multiple bridges over a key river. these could allow putin s forces to cut off supply routes to the region. ukrainian officials fear as many as 60 people are dead after they say russia dropped a bomb on a school over the weekend. let s turn to cnn s erin burnett in the capital o