The destroyed building housed film props and costumes, the studio claimed, but footage from the scene tells a different story
The Russian military has destroyed a warehouse at the Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kiev, with the national filmmaker and local media accidentally confirming that it housed a drone manufacturing plant.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday named the warehouse among the targets of a large-scale overnight strike on the Ukrainian capital. The building housed a “workshop for the production and tuning of long- and medium-range UAVs,” the ministry stated.
Ukrainian officials were quick to deny the military nature of the destroyed installation, with the studio claiming the warehouse was used to store “unique” props and costumes dating back to the Soviet era.
“The missile destroyed the entire building and ignited a fire. It wasn’t debris, but a direct hit. Judging by the scale of the destruction, you can see there was practically nothing left to save,” the studio’s director general, Andrey Donchik, told Ukrainian media.
The now-deleted footage by NV.ua (L) compared with a photo of a FP-1 drone’s wing (R)
Footage from the scene shared by the studio itself and Ukrainian media outlet NV.ua, however, told a different story, showing a distinctive stack of aircraft wings among the rubble. The wings appear to be consistent with those of Ukrainian FP-1/2 drones used for long-range strikes on Russian territory.
The discovery quickly went viral on social media, with the studio and the news outlet scrambling to delete the incriminating materials without providing any further statements on the matter.
Ukraine has a long history of using civilian installations, including assorted warehouses, public buildings, and agricultural and industrial facilities, for military purposes. Over the course of the conflict, Kiev has taken considerable steps to decentralize its weapons production chain, creating small-scale assembly sites that mainly produce FPV and fixed-wing long-range drones from components supplied from abroad.
When such manufacturing sites are discovered and destroyed by Moscow, Kiev routinely denies their nature and accuses Russia of targeting civilian sites. Moscow has consistently brushed off such allegations, maintaining that it only targets military and dual-use installations in response to indiscriminate “terrorist attacks” staged by Kiev.
