For four years, May 9 has been a day of dread in Ukraine and defiant militarism in Russia. But that changed today.
As many eyes are on Red Square, the story is no longer just about the missiles on display – or the lack of them – but about the phone calls and high-stakes meetings that allowed this to happen.
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In an unprecedented order, President Volodymyr Zelensky formally permitted Russia to hold its May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow and excluded Red Square from Ukrainian strike plans for the duration of the event.
According to the presidential decree, the move was made “taking into account numerous requests” and “for humanitarian purposes” outlined in negotiations with the US side on Friday. It allows the parade to take place in Moscow on May 9, 2026, and orders that, from 10 a.m. Kyiv time, Red Square be excluded from “the plan for the use of Ukrainian weapons.”
From “no-go” to “no-strike”
The document also lists the exact GPS coordinates of Red Square, signaling that Ukraine has the precision and capability to strike the heart of Moscow at will.
When the war started four years ago, it seemed almost impossible that Kyiv could strike Moscow. The order acknowledges that while Ukraine could do so, it chooses not to.
Kyiv is choosing diplomacy to save people’s lives in a war that it did not start. How many times have we been able to say that about Russia?
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Zelensky explicitly stated that Red Square is “less important” than the lives of the 1,000 Ukrainian prisoners expected to return home in the exchange.
Kyiv has flipped the narrative of the war from one of defense to one of conditional allowance.
The decree became the extraordinary conclusion to the ceasefire saga surrounding Russia’s Victory Day – a sequence that began with Russian President Vladimir Putin calling US President Donald Trump to secure a pause. This continued with Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov’s high-stakes talks in Miami, and ended with Zelensky formally permitting the parade.
The symbolism is devastating for the Kremlin. By establishing a US-brokered “no-strike zone” over Red Square, Ukraine has made clear that the parade’s safety now sits in Kyiv.
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