Merkel Won't Attend Moscow WWII Victory Day Parade

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.

"The chancellor considers it important to mark the joint remembrance of the end of the Second World War and the liberation from Nazism," said top government spokesman Steffen Seibert.

"The chancellor places great value on jointly remembering the historical chapter that both our peoples lived through during World War II and during which Germany was the source of so much death and suffering.

"The obligation to keep alive this memory and to commemorate the dead exists irrespective of our current differences with Russia and of our clear criticism of Russia's attitude towards and actions in Ukraine."

Western powers including Germany accuse Russia of backing pro-Moscow separatist rebels fighting in eastern Ukraine by sending troops and weapons across the border.

Amid the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War, many Western leaders are expected to boycott the military parade, where North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is among the expected guests.

According to Russian news agencies, leaders from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have already indicated they would not come.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked whether the Kremlin had been notified by Germany decision, said: "I don't have this information."

But he said the refusal by some Western countries to attend would not affect the Victory Day festivities.

"This will not affect the spirit of the holiday, its emotional aspect and the scale of the festivities," Peskov said on radio station Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei.