Russia on Wednesday accused Germany of anti-Russian sentiment in a statement on the anniversary of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi troops in 1941 as tensions rage over Ukraine. “Russophobic hysteria is systematically fuelled by almost daily public attacks against our country by members of the German government,” Russia’s foreign ministry said. It said authorities in Berlin “have recently been undermining the process of historical reconciliation between Russians and Germans” after World War II. Berlin “jeopardises the results of the efforts made by Russia and Germany for decades to overcome post-war enmity, hostility and distrust between the peoples of our countries”, the ministry said. It said “the anti-Russian propaganda campaign” has provoked “unmotivated aggression bordering on mass psychosis” against Russians and Russian speakers in Germany. The ministry also accused Nato member Germany of building up its military presence near Russia’s Western borders, “bringing to mind the most bitter periods of Russian-German relations for our people, including the events preceding May 1945”. Earlier on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin laid flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin wall in Moscow to mark the day World War II started for Russia. First delivery of German heavy weaponry arrives in Ukraine Ukrainian and Russian forces remain entrenched in eastern Ukrainian battlegrounds. Fighting in the months-long war has favoured Russia in recent weeks because of its huge edge in artillery firepower, a fact Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged in a late Tuesday address. “Thanks to tactical manoeuvres the Ukrainian army is strengthening its defences in the Luhansk region,” he said. “That is really the toughest spot. The occupiers are also pressing strongly in the direction of Donetsk.” Luhansk and Donetsk provinces combined are known as the Donbas, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. “And just as actively as we are fighting for a positive decision by the European Union on Ukraine’s candidate status, we are also fighting every day for modern weaponry for our country. We do not let up for a single day,” Zelensky said, urging his country’s supporters to speed up arms deliveries. In a symbolic decision, Ukraine is set to become an official candidate for European Union membership on Thursday, EU diplomats said. June 22 is a significant date in Russia – the “Day of Remembrance and Sorrow” – marking when Hitler’s Nazi Germany forces invaded the Soviet Union in World War II. It is also commemorated in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus, then part of the Soviet Union. The war there lasted 1,418 days from June 22, 1941, and historians estimate about 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed. To mark the anniversary, the Russian defence ministry on Wednesday released documents dating back to the beginning of World War II purporting to show Germany intended to claim the Soviet army was bombing churches and cemeteries to justify its invasion. “Just as nowadays, in 1941, the Nazis prepared provocations in advance to discredit our state,” Russia’s defence ministry said. Russian forces and separatists in east Ukraine made advances on Tuesday, pushing towards Lysychansk city, the Ukrainian forces’ main bastion in the Donbas. In some of the bloodiest fighting in Europe since World War II, Russia has made slow progress in the Donbas since April in a conflict that has cost thousands of soldiers’ lives on both sides. Ukraine strikes Black Sea oil platform used as Russian military installation The separatist Donetsk People’s Republic had acknowledged more than 2,000 military personnel killed and almost 9,000 wounded since the beginning of the year, according to British military intelligence. That was equivalent to about 55 per cent of its original force, it said. Some of the fighting has spanned the Siverskyi Donets river that curls through the Donbas, with Russian forces mainly on the east bank and Ukrainian forces mainly on the west. But Ukrainian troops – and an estimated 500 civilians – are reportedly still holding out at a chemical plant in the east bank city of Sievierodonetsk. The governor of Luhansk province, Serhiy Gaidai, said Russians were advancing towards Lysychansk, attacking the buildings of police, state security and prosecutors, taking settlements and attacking the city with aircraft. Oleskiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelensky, said Russian forces could cut off Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk from Ukrainian-held territory. “The threat of a tactical Russian victory is there, but they haven’t done it yet,” he said in an online video. Attacks have picked up in the Kharkiv region in the northeast, with at least 15 civilians killed by Russian shelling, its governor said on Tuesday. Arestovych said. “The idea is to create one big problem to distract us.” ‘Lost a lot of pilots’: Inside Ukraine’s secret, deadly rescue missions