FRANKFURT (REUTERS, AFP) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a televised address to the nation on Sunday (May 8), marking the anniversary of the end of World War II, assured Ukraine of solidarity in its fight against Russia's invasion.

"Putin will not win this war. Ukraine will persevere," said Scholz.

The date takes on special meaning this year as two countries that were once victims of Nazi Germany - Ukraine and Russia - are now at war because Russia unleashed it, he said.

Scholz said Germany would help Ukraine with humanitarian, financial and military help.

There would be no peace dictated by Russia, he said, echoing remarks also made by the president of the German parliament, Baerbel Bas, earlier on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia has forgotten everything that mattered to the victors of World War II, a day before Moscow commemorates the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany.

Denouncing Russia’s heavy shelling in the east of the country including one strike on a school that he says killed 60 people, he added: “Russia has forgotten everything that was important to the victors of World War II.”

While normal people associated the anniversary with peace and the slogan “Never again!”, Russia was continuing its attacks, said Zelensky in his nightly address.

“As a result of the Russian air strike on Bilogorivka of the Lugansk region, about 60 people were killed,” he added.

“Civilians who simply hid in the school from the shelling. It was a targeted blow to the school. Another crime of the occupiers.” “I am sure that today Ukraine has shown that we are already a full-fledged part of the free world and a united Europe.”

Russia will on Monday mark the 77th anniversary since victory in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War.

Thousands of soldiers will march across the Red Square in Moscow followed by tanks, armoured vehicles and missile launchers.