Russia has started preparations for its Victory Day Parade in Moscow, rehearsing with 11,000 troops and giant intercontinental missiles.
Eight MiG-29 planes will fly past in a Z shape in a bizarre celebration of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
The Kremlin leader will want to be able to announce the 'success' of the war by the time the ceremony takes place next month.
Russia was compared to "an oversized North Korea but worse" on Twitter where clips of the event have been circulating.
Thousands of troops took part in the rehearsals along with tanks and military equipment.
In a statement, the Russian Defence Ministry said: "In total, 11,000 military personnel, 131 units of modern weapons and military equipment, and 77 planes and helicopters are involved in the preparations for the parade on Red Square."
Victory Day is celebrated in Russia on May 9 to mark the country's triumph over Nazi Germany in World War 2.
It was on this day in 1945 when the Soviet government announced the victory after the signing of the German Instrument of Surrender just after midnight in Berlin.
Annual celebrations include a military parade of the Russian Armed Forces at the Red Square in Moscow with the president as the guest of honour and a keynote speech.
This year’s celebration will have added significance, as it comes during Russia’s shelling of Ukraine in an attempt to force them into submission.
Taking centre stage during rehearsals was an enormous intercontinental missile.
The RD-24 missile launcher is said to be a show of force and a reminder of what is at stake as tensions continue to simmer between Russia and the West.
It can send up to 10 nuclear warheads to targets in Europe or the United States simultaneously.
The rehearsal took place in the village of Alabino near Moscow, according to reports.
Students and cadets from military educational institutions of the Ministry of Defence attended the practice, according to Pravda.
Security agencies, officers, sergeants and soldiers from forces and military units of the Western Military District were also in attendance, it added.
Students from the Nakhimov and Suvorov military schools, the cadet corps, and "Young Army" members were said to be among those in training.
Typhoon off-road vehicles, T-14 Armata tanks and Kurganets-25 infantry fighting vehicles reportedly featured in the parade rehearsals along with Tornado-G mobile short-range ballistic missile systems.
It comes after Ukraine announced that Russia is starting a new offensive in the east of the country with explosions along the front lines and attacks in other regions on Monday.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his forces will fight on as Russian troops struck along the eastern front line on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian leader called it the "Battle of the Donbas" meaning the long-awaited second phase of the war.
A "very large part of the entire Russian army is now focused on this offensive," Zelenskiy said in a video address overnight.
"No matter how many Russian troops they send there, we will fight. We will defend ourselves."
Zelenskiy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, assured Ukrainians their forces could hold off the offensive.
"Believe in our army, it is very strong," he said.
Meanwhile in the besieged city of Mariupol, Russia gave the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a giant steel works an ultimatum to surrender by noon or die.
"All who lay down their arms are guaranteed to remain alive," the defence ministry said.
Russian-backed separatists said the pro-Moscow forces were preparing to storm the Azovstal factory, believed to be the last base of Ukrainian troops who have survived the longest and most brutal siege of the war.
Driven back by Ukrainian forces in March from an assault on Kyiv in the north, Russia has poured troops in to the east to regroup for a ground offensive in two provinces known as the Donbas.
It has also been launching long-distance strikes at other targets including the capital.
Ukrainian media reported explosions, some powerful, along the front line in the Donetsk region, with shelling taking place in Marinka, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Blasts were also heard in Kharkiv in the northeast, Mykolaiv in the south and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast while air raid sirens were also going off in main centres near the front line,
officials and media said.
The governor of the Russian province of Belgorod said Ukrainian forces had struck a border village wounding one resident.
Ukraine's top security official, Oleksiy Danilov, said Russian forces attempted to break through Ukrainian defences "along almost the entire front line of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions".
The coal and steel producing Donbas has been the focal point of Russia's campaign to destabilise Ukraine since 2014 when the Kremlin used proxies to set up separatist "people's republics" in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukraine's general staff said Russian forces aimed to establish full control over the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson regions, while intensifying missile strikes in west Ukraine.
Zelenskiy's office said at least eight people had been killed and 13 wounding in shelling or fighting in Luhansk and Donetsk frontline towns and villages.
