Russia says massive Ukrainian drone attack thwarted as US-brokered talks kick off

Russian air defenses shot down 337 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions overnight, military officials said Tuesday, in what appeared to be the biggest Ukrainian drone attack on Russia in the three-year war.

The attack came hours before the start of key Ukraine-US talks in Saudi Arabia on how to stop Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. Two people were killed and 18 were injured, including three children, officials said.

In the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, journalists briefly entered a room where a senior Ukrainian delegation met with America’s top diplomat for talks on ending Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio smiled for the cameras, while Ukrainian officials sat without expression as the meeting got underway at a luxury hotel. There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian or US officials on the drone attack.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was on hand for the talks as American, Saudi and Ukrainian flags stood in the background. Officials answered no shouted questions.

The talks in Saudi Arabia reflect a new diplomatic push after an unprecedented argument erupted during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s February 28 visit to the White House. Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press on Monday that they will propose a ceasefire covering the Black Sea, which would bring safer shipping, as well long-range missile strikes that have hit civilians in Ukraine, and the release of prisoners.

The Kremlin has not publicly offered any concessions. Russia has said it’s ready to cease hostilities on condition that Ukraine drops its bid to join NATO and recognizes regions that Moscow occupies as Russian.

Russian forces have held the battlefield momentum for more than a year and are pushing at selected points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian or US officials on the drone attack.

Most of the Ukrainian drones fired at Russia overnight — 126 of them — were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which Kyiv’s forces control, and 91 were shot down over the Moscow region, according to a statement by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

The Kremlin on Tuesday condemned Ukraine for launching drone attacks on residential buildings.

“The Kyiv regime is hitting social facilities and residential buildings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state media, also hailing Russia’s air defenses as having worked “very well” to repel the attack.

Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said over 70 drones targeted the Russian capital and were shot down as they were flying toward it — the biggest single attack on Moscow so far in the war.

Other attacked regions listed in the statement included Belgorod, Bryansk and Voronezh on the border with Ukraine and those deeper inside Russia, such as Kaluga, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Oryol and Ryazan.

The governor of the Moscow region surrounding the capital, Andrei Vorobyov, said the attack damaged several residential buildings and a number of cars.

Another person was wounded on a highway in the Lipetsk region, Gov. Igor Artamonov said.

Sobyanin said the roof of a building in Moscow also sustained damage, which he described as “insignificant.” Footage of the building, published by RIA Novosti, showed a charred spot on the facade of a multistory residential building near the roof, with bits of the building’s lining stripped off.

Flights were temporarily restricted in and out of six airports, including Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky just outside Moscow, and airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions.

Train traffic through the Domodedovo railway station in the Moscow region has also been briefly halted, local officials reported.

Local authorities also reported downing drones in the Tula and Vladimir regions adjacent to the Moscow region. It wasn’t immediately clear why those regions weren’t mentioned in the Defense Ministry’s statement.

Separately on Tuesday morning, Russia’s army said it had retaken 12 settlements from Ukraine in the western Kursk region, where Moscow has launched a rapid counteroffensive to take back land seized by Kyiv last year.

“The units of the ‘North’ group of troops during the offensive liberated 12 settlements… and more than 100 square kilometers of the Kursk region territory,” Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement.

In the Saudi city of Jeddah, Rubio and his delegation, including US national security adviser Mike Waltz, were preparing to meet Zelensky’s team.

Two senior Ukrainian officials said Kyiv is ready to sign an agreement with the United States on access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals — a deal that US President Donald Trump is keen to secure.

On his plane to Jeddah, Rubio said the US delegation would not be proposing any specific measures to secure an end to the three-year conflict but rather wanted to hear from Ukraine about what it would be willing to consider.

“I’m not going to set any conditions on what they have to or need to do,” Rubio told reporters accompanying him. “I think we want to listen to see how far they’re willing to go and then compare that to what the Russians want and see how far apart we truly are.”

Rubio said the rare earth and critical minerals deal could be signed during the meeting but stressed it was not a precondition for the United States to move ahead with discussions with either Ukraine or the Russians.

He said it may, in fact, make more sense to take some time to negotiate the precise details of the agreement, which is now a broad memorandum of understanding that leaves out many specifics.

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