RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin told his country’s traditional Victory Day parade on Moscow’s Red Square today that the West's “untamed ambitions, arrogance and impunity” are driving “a real war” against Russia.

Mr Putin told the annual commemoration celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany: “Today civilisation is once again at a decisive turning point.

“A real war has been unleashed against our motherland.”

President Putin’s remarks came just hours after the Kremlin’s forces fired its latest barrage of cruise missiles at Ukraine in a conflict that the Russian president has repeatedly framed as a Western proxy.

Ukrainian authorities claimed their air defences destroyed 23 of the alleged 25 missiles launched against them by the Russians. 

The United States is expected to announce later today that it will provide a further $1.2 billion (£950 million) more in military aid to the country, which Russia invaded in February last year.

In front of around 10,000 troops and the leaders of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — all former Soviet states — Mr Putin praised the soldiers taking part in the war in Ukraine.

He said: “There is nothing in the world stronger than our love for the motherland,” he declared, blasting “Western globalist elites” that “harp about their exclusivity, pit people against each other, divide society and provoke bloody conflicts and coups, sow hatred, Russophobia.”

President Putin likened Ukraine’s government to the Nazis defeated in World War Two and accused the West of forgetting who defeated the Nazis.

The Russian president was referring to the around 27 million Soviet Union troops and civilians who died as they held off the brutal attack by the Nazis, suffering the largest number of casualties of any nation involved in the conflict.

His message to the soldiers on parade in Red Square was “there is nothing more important than their combat work, as Russia's security counts on the work of those in the front line.”

But during a speech in Kiev today European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowed to ramp up the economic pressure against Russia.

She urged the 27 member nations to take trade measures against countries that help the Kremlin to circumvent the bloc’s sanctions against Russia.

And in Strasbourg, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said EU countries should not be intimidated by the show of force in Moscow, but back Ukraine for as long as it takes.