Hours before representatives from Ukraine and the United States met this Tuesday in Saudi Arabia to advance peace efforts with Russia, the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out their largest drone attack since the start of the conflict. The offensive, executed between the night of March 10 and the early hours of March 11, struck multiple Russian regions, including the Moscow province, where three people lost their lives due to direct impacts or falling debris from downed drones. Additionally, at least 17 people were injured.
From Kyiv, Ukrainian authorities stated that the objective of the attack was to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into accepting the temporary aerial ceasefire proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the Kremlin warned that this offensive could significantly damage the prospects for future negotiations.
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that its air defense systems successfully intercepted and destroyed 337 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory. Of these, 74 were headed toward Moscow, according to the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, who described the attack as the most massive strike against the Russian capital to date.
The Russian government accused Ukraine of launching this offensive to influence the visit of the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Feridun Sinirlioglu, to Moscow on Tuesday. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented on Telegram that this was not the first time a Ukrainian drone attack had coincided with the arrival of a high-level foreign delegation. She also noted that Russian authorities had shown Sinirlioglu the damage caused by the drones in the Moscow province, taking him to some of the affected locations.
Sinirlioglu is scheduled to meet in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. His visit marks the first trip of an OSCE Secretary General to Russia since June 2021, when the organization was led by German diplomat Helga Schmid. Turkish politician and diplomat Sinirlioglu has held the position since December 2024.
For its part, Ukraine insisted that the drone offensive across a dozen Russian regions, including the capital and its province, was aimed at pressuring the Kremlin to accept Zelensky’s proposal for a temporary aerial ceasefire. “This is another signal to Putin that he should be interested in an air ceasefire,” explained Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation of Ukraine’s National Security Council, in a video posted on Telegram.
However, the Kremlin does not see it that way. Its spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the RIA Novosti agency that the attack could negatively impact the progress made in diplomatic initiatives since Donald Trump’s arrival as President of the United States. “There are still no negotiations,” Peskov noted, “but the trend could deteriorate significantly.”
Kovalenko mentioned that the Ukrainian delegation might present Zelensky’s proposed aerial and maritime ceasefire to their American counterparts on Tuesday. Later, the White House representative for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who is part of the U.S. delegation in the meeting in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), could relay the proposal to Putin.
The most affected region by the attack was the Kursk Oblast, located on the border with Ukraine and partially occupied by Kyiv’s army since the August 2024 incursion. In that area, Russian defenses shot down 126 drones. In Moscow province, 91 drones were destroyed, while 38 were downed in Bryansk Oblast, 25 in Belgorod, 22 in Ryazan, and 10 in Kaluga. Additional attacks were recorded in Lipetsk, Oryol, Voronezh, and Nizhny Novgorod.
One of the deceased was a 38-year-old security guard at a parking lot in the town of Domodedovo, where more than 20 cars were burned in a fire caused by the fall of a drone, according to Moscow province governor Andrei Vorobyov. In the same incident, a 50-year-old man was seriously injured and later died in the hospital.
The Russian Ministry of Health reported that 18 people, including three children, were injured in the Moscow region, six of whom required hospitalization. One was in critical condition, and another was in serious condition. “Doctors are fighting for their life,” said Alexei Kuznetsov, an advisor to the Minister of Health. Later, one of the injured succumbed to their wounds, raising the death toll to three.
Domodedovo Mayor Yelena Khrustalyova confirmed the third death and expressed her condolences to the victims’ families on Telegram: “We are shocked and saddened.”
Following the attack, Russian aviation authorities temporarily suspended operations at Moscow airports, as well as in Nizhny Novgorod and Yaroslavl.
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