0615GMT/ May 8 2025

• KREMLIN TALKS: Vladimir Putin on Wednesday held talks in the Kremlin with Venezuelan Pres. Nicolas Maduro, as well as with the leaders of Cuba, Mongolia and the Congo, ahead of his May 9 military parade. (COMMENT: The Kremlin charm offensive has slipped into overdrive ahead of the major parade.)
• PUTIN TO MEET XI: Putin is due to meet with Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping on Thursday in Moscow. (COMMENT: Xi is Putin's most important guest for his May 9 Victory Day Parade. Chinese officials said that the talks would deepen "mutual trust" between China and Russia. Russian sources said Putin wanted to discuss the delayed Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline to China.)
• AVIATION CHAOS: Airlines in Russia continued to cancel flights in and out of Moscow on Wednesday because of overflight restrictions linked to Putin's May 9 military parade. (NOTE: Russia's security services are worried about Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow.)
• DRONE ATTACKS: Ukraine has intensified its drone attacks on Russia ahead of the military parade in Moscow, including attacking the air base of the Russian Air Force's acrobatics squad. It is due to perform above Moscow on May 9. (NOTE: The Russian Air Forces' acrobatic team, known as the Russian Knights, is based at the Shaikovka airfield in the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow.)
• SERBIA GOES TO MOSCOW: Serbian President Alexander Vucic flew to Moscow ahead of Putin's May 9 military parade. In an interview recorded in Red Square, he defied the European Union, challenging it to punish him for the trip. Slovak PM Robert Fico is expected to arrive in Moscow later on Thursday.

• AZERBAIJAN PULLS OUT: Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan's president, cancelled a planned trip to Russia to attend Putin's May 9 military parade. The Kremlin said that he had cancelled because of a clash with events dedicated to celebrating his father but Russia-Azerbaijan relations have soured this year. (COMMENT: This feels like a deliberate dodge by Aliyev. At the end of last week, an Azerbaijani MP accused Russia's FSB-linked Cozy Bear of a cyber attack against Azerbaijan as retaliation for the closing down of Russia House in Baku in February after it was accused of being a "Kremlin spy den". Azerbaijan-Russia relations have crumbled since the shooting down on Christmas Day of an Azerbaijani passenger airliner by air defence systems around Grozny.)
• LAOS CANCELS: Laos' Pres. Thongloun Sisoulith has also pulled out of travelling to Moscow for Putin's military parade because he has "coronavirus".
• KADYROV MEETS PUTIN: Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's president, flew to Moscow to meet with Putin after he had told Russian news agencies that he is considering retiring. (COMMENT: The Kadyrov-Putin meeting appears to have been organised at the last minute and stopped Putin from meeting his guest of honour at his May 9 military parade, Chinese Pres. Xi, at the airport. This highlights how important Kadyrov is to Putin. After the meeting, Kadyrov rowed back on his comments about retiring, instead telling media that he would only retire if Putin wanted him to – which he clearly doesn't.)
• ECONOMIC CONTRACTION: New car sales in Russia fell 25% in April compared to a year earlier, official data showed. (COMMENT: This slowdown is in line with other economic data points which all show contractions in the Russian economy.)
• WAR VETERANS PROMOTED: A suspected Russian war criminal has been appointed minister of labour in Russia's North Ossetia region. Yuri Abaev is a former Russian army officer that the Ukrainian security services have named as a suspect in the shooting of Ukrainian POWs captured in Zaporizhia region in 2022. (NOTE: The Kremlin has told its regions to promote veterans of its war in Ukraine.)
• SANCTIONS: The EU is preparing to sanction Litasco Middle East, a trading unit of Russia's Lukoil, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. It said that Litasco, which relocated from Switzerland in 2022 after the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, had set up a "shadow fleet" of oil tankers for Lukoil that allowed it to continue to trade around the world. (NOTE: The EU has said that it wants to tighten sanctions on Russian oil and gas sales.)