A major military music festival in Moscow has been canceled four days before it was due to start, the organizers said on Telegram.

The lavish parade, known as the Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival, attracts thousands of visitors and brings together dozens of military bands in the heart of Moscow on Red Square near the Kremlin.

The event, which began in 2007 at President Vladimir Putin’s orders, is one of Russia’s most prominent military-themed events, alongside the May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow and the Navy Day show in St. Petersburg. Spasskaya “Tower was only canceled once before — in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In its early years, military bands from EU countries, Australia and Canada took part in Spasskaya Tower, though the number of international participants has declined since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

According to the festival’s Telegram channel, “the event has been postponed until 2027 due to circumstances beyond the organizers’ control.”

The move comes amid an increase in Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian capital.

Overnight, Kyiv’s forces launched one of the largest assaults on Moscow in recent months, with more than 600 drones directed toward the Russian capital and surrounding region. The strikes, which, according to Russian media, targeted the facilities of Wildberries, a major Russian online marketplace, as well as logistics warehouses, sparked massive fires and killed one person.

Earlier in June, the Kremlin canceled another event in Moscow’s Red Square — a gala concert marking Russia Day. The Victory Day parade on May 9 was held on a limited scale and, for the first time in nearly 20 years, without heavy military equipment.

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Authorities in Tokyo lashed out at Moscow after a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the disputed island of Iturup on Thursday.

The island, also known by its Japanese name Etorofu, lies northeast of Japan — around 100 kilometers from the coast of Hokkaido — in the Kuril Islands chain and is claimed by both Moscow and Tokyo. Like the other disputed islands in the chain, they are administered by Russia.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi wrote on X on Thursday: “Today, I was informed that Russian President Putin visited Iturup Island. The Northern Territories, including Iturup Island, are inherently Japanese territory both historically and under international law, and the Government of Japan strongly protests this visit.”

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the visit “incompatible with Japan’s consistent position on the Northern Territories” and “absolutely unacceptable.”

“Even amid the harsh state of Japan-Russia relations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Japan has made every possible effort,” wrote Takaichi on X, “but this visit can only be said to have further hardened anti-Russia sentiment within Japan and made medium- to long-term recovery of relations more difficult. I hope that the Russian side will take the gravity of this matter very seriously.”

Moscow, however, claims the island chain became part of Russian territory following Japan’s defeat in World War II.

The Kremlin also operates a strategically important military base on Iturup. In 2025, Japan protested a Russian shooting drill in waters in the area, including in Japan’s territorial waters, and said that the Kremlin’s “military buildup” in the area was “unacceptable.”

According to Russian state media, Putin visited a fish farm on the island. The report said that he was told that the waters of the Kuril Islands are currently filled with tuna weighing up to 300 kilograms — and he was also treated to caviar.

This story has been updated.