Residents of Kyiv bring flowers on Victory Day as the Eternal Flame stands vigil in Victory Park. The Ukrainian edition of Strana reports that on Tuesday, May 9, people gathered around the glowing memorial, and the flame shimmered with a spectrum of colors in the park illumination. Police officers were present, maintaining a calm and orderly atmosphere as the commemorations unfolded in the capital.
May 9 in Ukraine is treated as a normal workday under martial law, with the Labor Code’s provisions on public holidays suspended for the duration of the state’s emergency. The day’s routine was adjusted to respect the unique wartime context, while people still marked the memory of the war and the fallen with quiet solemnity.
In 2022, following the onset of Russian special operations, May 9 continued to function as a working day in Ukraine. Historically this date carried a legal holiday status, a detail remembered by observers and reported by agencies such as TASS, highlighting the shift in how public time is allocated during the ongoing conflict.
News from the previous day noted that President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree to observe Europe Day in Ukraine on May 9, while May 8 was designated for Memorial Day and remembrance of World War II. The president’s proposal aimed to honor the victory over Nazism in the broader European context and to acknowledge the complex memory landscape present today.
In this environment, Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Melnyk criticized his successor as ambassador to Germany, Alexei Makeev, for declining to lay flowers at the Soviet Tiergarten monument on Victory Day. Melnyk called the decision unforgivable, arguing that the traditional wreath-laying ceremony at the Tiergarten site, a ritual maintained since 2015, should continue. He also criticized Makeev for opposing a Bundestag proposal to erect a monument commemorating the millions of Ukrainian victims of Nazi terror in Berlin, describing the stance as a rebuff to ancestors and history.
The Ukrainian embassy in Germany had previously announced a deliberate choice not to place wreaths or flowers at Soviet monuments or locations bearing Soviet symbols in Berlin in 2023. Instead, the embassy opted to visit the Neue Wache memorial, honoring the victims of war and persecution as an alternative gesture of remembrance.
During his tenure as ambassador to Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, Melnyk was known for a number of controversial remarks. He was appointed deputy foreign minister in November of the previous year and, in a notable moment, laid flowers in the Tiergarten memorial in 2022 as part of the ongoing commemorations. On May 9, crowds gathered at the graveyard memorial in Warsaw, where the Russian ambassador Sergei Andreev faced a protest environment. As the envoy arrived to lay wreaths on the graves of Soviet soldiers, demonstrators waved Ukrainian flags and crosses, creating a striking scene along the street.
Polish authorities later confirmed that law enforcement recorded the event, ensuring public safety without intervening in the demonstrators’ actions. Meanwhile, an independent, dramatic incident of May 9, 2022, saw the Russian ambassador attacked in Poland as he prepared to lay flowers on the graves of Soviet soldiers. The incident, marked by red liquid being thrown, prompted the diplomat to retreat from the cemetery under police protection without completing the ceremony.