Largest drone attack of war hits Moscow region

Three men have been killed in the Moscow region, in what is described as the largest drone attack on the Russian capital since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine.

A further 18 people, including three children, were injured, health officials told Russian media.

Officials said all three men who died had been working at a distribution centre when it was hit by drone debris in the village of Yam, near Domodedovo airport. Dozens of vehicles were destroyed when the drone hit a car park, and the glass front of a supermarket was badly damaged.

The Russian defence ministry said 337 drones were intercepted over Russia and 91 of them were shot down over the Moscow region.

Vorobyev said two of the men died while starting their shift at a food distribution centre

The three men who died were aged 38, 43 and 50.

One was working as a security guard while the other two had just begun their shift at the Miratorg agricultural distribution centre when it was hit by a drone at 05:14 (02:14 GMT) on Tuesday, according to Moscow's regional governor Andrei Vorobyov.

The company said later that 40 cars had been damaged in the car park.

Several people were also hurt when a block of flats was hit in Vidnoye, just south of the Moscow ring road, and another block was damaged in the town of Ramenskoye, further to the east.

Hours earlier, four people had been killed on Monday evening when a shopping centre was hit by shelling in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, according to Russian officials.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said seven apartments were damaged in Ramenskoye and he said it was "the most massive" drone attack that his region had seen.

The roof of one building was damaged by drone wreckage, though Sobyanin described the damage as "insignificant".

He also said 12 people - including three children - had to be evacuated following the overnight strike.

One district train network was suspended, and flight restrictions were put in place at Moscow's airports after the attack.

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The attack came hours ahead of a crunch meeting between representatives from the US and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia, focused on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The talks in Jeddah between Ukrainian delegates and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio were the first official meeting since last month's fiery exchange at the White House between Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and his US counterpart Donald Trump.

Rubio suggested on Monday that, as part of an agreement to stop the war, Ukraine may have to relinquish territory to Russia, adding that both sides needed to understand that "there's no military solution to this situation".

Flight restrictions were imposed on Moscow's four major airports due to the attack

Following the strikes, flight restrictions were imposed on Moscow's four major airports - Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky - as well as airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions. These are major transport hubs used by millions of passengers every year.

Russia's defence ministry later said that, overall, 337 Ukrainian drones were either intercepted or destroyed overnight in the Moscow and nine other Russian regions, including Kursk.

Officials in Kyiv said the scale of the attack was intended as a signal to push Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire in the air and sea.

Overnight, Ukrainian officials reported Russian drone attacks on the capital Kyiv and several other regions.

Ukraine's air force said it had shot down 79 of 126 drones launched by Russia, as well as an Iskander-M ballistic missile.

It added that another 35 drones had probably failed to reach their targets due to electronic warfare countermeasures, though it was unclear whether the other 12 hit their targets.

It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties.