A Ukrainian drone hit a luxury high-rise tower in Moscow on Monday, a rare attack near the heart of the Russian capital just days before this year’s Victory Day parade.
Multiple videos posted on Russian Telegram news channels appear to show debris strewn across a main road near the Mosfilm tower, a two-building residential complex about 4 miles from Moscow’s city center.
Business Insider was unable to determine when these videos and photos were taken, but they are consistent with street markings and the city layout near the Mosfilm tower.
Another clip showed emergency vehicles and halted road traffic at a junction next to the complex.
The taller of the two buildings appears to have been the target, with photos showing visible damage to one of the 54-floor tower’s upper levels.
Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, confirmed an attack on Monday evening, saying that a drone had struck a building on Mosfilmovskaya Street. Sobyanin said that there were no injuries.
Monday’s attack on the Mosfilm tower is one of Ukraine’s deepest drone hits in the heavily defended Russian capital. The skyscraper is located in one of Moscow’s most affluent neighborhoods, with major foreign embassies down the road and a nearby city-center golf range.
The strike also comes five days before Russia is set to hold its annual parade celebrating the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.
Over the last few years, Ukraine has harassed Moscow with attempted drone attacks in the lead-up to the parade, which is one of the grandest displays of Russia’s military might.
As Moscow prepared last year to host dozens of world leaders for one of its highest-profile editions of the parade, Kyiv repeatedly disrupted local airports by launching waves of drone attacks.
This year, the Kremlin said it would hold a scaled-down version of the parade, with no displays of significant military equipment due to the war situation and the threat of Ukrainian attack.
“This is telling,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday while attending a summit in Armenia. “It shows they are not strong now.”
Zelenskyy hinted at further drone threats on Moscow this month, saying that Russian officials “fear drones may buzz over Red Square” during the parade.
The Russian defense ministry said that it had shot down at least 117 Ukrainian drones bound for the capital on Sunday night.
With Moscow about 275 miles from the nearest Ukrainian border, Kyiv often uses fixed-wing drones to attack the capital.
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