Ukraine battles to hold eastern bastions as Russia prepares Victory Day parade

Zelensky says ‘evil’ returned to Europe in an address for Victory Day to mark the end of Second World War

Ukrainian forces were braced to defend their final bastion in the devastated port city of Mariupol on Sunday, desperate to deny Russia a symbolic win on the eve of Moscow's Victory Day celebrations.

Shelling and missile strikes have intensified in the build up to the Second World War anniversary, and rescuers are hunting for 60 Ukrainian civilians feared killed in the bombing of a village school.

President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the anniversary on the end of the World War by comparing Ukraine's battle for national survival to the region's war of resistance against its former Nazi occupiers.

"Decades after World War II, darkness has returned to Ukraine, and it has become black and white again," Zelensky said, in a monochrome social media video shot against the backdrop of bombed out apartment block.

"Evil has returned, in a different uniform, under different slogans, but for the same purpose," he warned, trying to turn Russia leader President Vladimir Putin's "anti-Nazi" rhetoric back on itself.

Russia, meanwhile, was gearing up for a Victory Day parade designed to associate the invasion of its neighbour with the national pride felt over the Soviet Union's defeat of Germany.

Zelensky was also to meet G7 leaders via video conference to discuss the crisis, and European diplomats were hammering out the details of their latest sanctions package against Moscow.