Ukraine has launched its largest drone attack on Moscow since the start of the war hours before US and Ukrainian teams convened for peace talks in Saudi Arabia.
The Russian defence ministry reported that 337 drones were launched at Russia overnight on Monday, including 91 targeting the Moscow region, killing three people, causing fires and disrupting flights and train services.
A senior Ukrainian official said on Tuesday the drone attack should encourage Vladimir Putin to accept an aerial and naval ceasefire that Ukraine is expected to propose during the talks in Saudi Arabia.
“The largest drone attack in history was carried out on Moscow and the Moscow region,” said Andriy Kovalenko, a national security council official responsible for countering disinformation. He added: “This is an additional signal to Putin that he should also be interested in a ceasefire in the air.”
Russia’s health ministry reported that 18 people were injured in the Moscow region.
The Russian aviation watchdog said flights were suspended at all four of Moscow’s airports. Two other airports, in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions east of Moscow, were also closed.
Russian Telegram channels shared images showing the aftermath of drone strikes on a car park outside Miratorg, one of Russia’s biggest meat producers, in the Moscow southern suburb of Domodedovo, which killed three security guards and damaged about 40 vehicles.
Tatyana, a shopkeeper from Domodedovo, said: “I’ve been up since 3am. The sound of drones woke us first, then came the explosions. It was the loudest night in three years, absolutely terrifying.”
There was some anger in Moscow over the apparent lack of warning from Russia’s emergency services about the drone attack.
“How did such a large number of drones cross the border from Ukraine unnoticed? Where were the alarms?” Oksana wrote in a chat on Telegram for Domodedovo residents.
Russian state media also published images of a damaged apartment in a multi-storey building in the Ramenskoye district, about 31 miles (50km) south-east of the Kremlin.
It was not immediately clear whether Russia’s defence systems had intercepted all the drones flying toward Moscow.
Shot, a Telegram channel with links to the security services, cited a former Russian serviceman who reportedly shot down one of the drones with a hunting rifle in a small village outside Moscow.
Russian officials and pro-Russian outlets frequently say drones have been shot down and their debris damaged housing or facilities – regardless of whether the drones hit their intended military targets.
Ukraine routinely launches drone attacks on Russia, targeting infrastructure critical to Moscow’s war effort. Tuesday’s attack was the largest on the capital this year, coming hours before US and Ukrainian teams were to meet for peace talks in Saudi Arabia. The timing appeared to send a clear signal to Moscow and Washington that Kyiv was not prepared to accept an unfavourable peace deal and remained a formidable military force.
Like their Ukrainian counterparts, Russian officials and Moscow-aligned Telegram channels also linked the attack to the peace talks.
“The meaning behind this largest drone attack on the Moscow region is clear – it coincides with the start of negotiations in Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine will try to push for an air and naval ceasefire that is entirely unfavourable to Russia,” wrote the popular pro-Kremlin channel MIG Russia.
“The raid is meant to suggest that such a decision would supposedly benefit all parties … But it won’t work,” the channel added.
The Kremlin has yet to comment on Ukraine’s latest proposal for a partial ceasefire, though Russia has previously dismissed such proposals as attempts to buy time and allow Kyiv to rebuild its military.
On Monday the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, travelled to Saudi Arabia hoping to mend his strained relationship with the US and secure better terms to end the war. Ukraine also aims to persuade the Trump administration to reverse its decision to halt intelligence-sharing and military aid.
Without American military aid, Ukraine is leaning heavily on its fast-growing drone industry and the production of domestically made artillery systems to sustain its defence efforts.
Ukraine and Russia have developed innovative and increasingly sophisticated UAV programmes. Kyiv has established its own drone command and has improved the range of its systems, with attacks hundreds of kilometres into Russia. It has hit weapons storage units, oil processing facilities and enemy airstrips near the Arctic Circle, as well as naval vessels in the Caspian Sea.
Kommersant, a Russian news outlet, said Ukraine primarily used its new An-126 Liutyi (Fierce) drones for Tuesday’s strikes on Moscow.
Separate from its attack on the Russian capital, Ukraine also launched more than 100 drones at Russia’s Kursk region, near the Ukrainian border, where Moscow has been reclaiming territory lost after Kyiv’s surprise incursion last summer.
Since the US halted military and intelligence aid to Ukraine, Russia has intensified its offensive in the Kursk region, threatening to encircle thousands of Ukrainian troops.
On Tuesday, Maria Zakharova, from the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, claimed that the large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow was a sign that Russian forces were gaining the upper hand on the battlefield.
