German Chancellor Angela Merkel won't attend a May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow but will visit the Russian capital a day later, her office said Wednesday, amid tensions over the Ukraine conflict.
Merkel has declined an invitation to attend the Red Square commemoration marking 70 years since the capitulation of Nazi Germany to Soviet forces, a government spokesman said.
However, she plans to visit Moscow on May 10 to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier together with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had agreed to the plan, the spokesman said.