Three people were killed and 18 injured, including three children, in a drone strike hitting the outer suburbs of Moscow in the early hours of Tuesday morning, emergency service said. Local rail travel was disrupted and six airports in and near the city closed due to airspace disruptions.
Both Russia and Ukraine have said independently of each other that the attack was record-breaking in scale. The Russian Ministry of Defence says it shot down 337 Ukrainian drones, 91 of which were shot down over Moscow, and that it was the largest drone attack on the city of the war.
Ukraine, for their part, said it was the “largest drone attack in history” and that it was launched as a message to Moscow. Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s National Security Council’s Center for Countering Disinformation was cited by The Guardian as having said: “This is an additional signal to Putin that he should also be interested in a ceasefire in the air.”
That refers to a plan being put to the United States today in Saudi Arabia that a Ukraine ceasefire may begin with a cessation of hostilities in the air domain and at sea first. The United Kingdom and France are said to back the idea.
The attack may also be a message to the United States itself, given Ukraine’s own assertion just days ago that any country that commits drone strikes on civilians can’t be that serious about peace. That was about Russia striking Kyiv though, and now the roles are reversed Ukraine has pre-emptively explained none of the several hits reported on apartment buildings in Moscow were deliberate.
On this, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stated their drone attack had: “struck a number of strategic objects of the Russian Federation involved in ensuring armed aggression against Ukraine” but that civilian damage was down to Russian forces shooting down Ukrainian drones before they could reach their true targets. They said: “It is known from open sources that as a result of the actions of the air defense of the Russian aggressor, a number of civilian infrastructure facilities were damaged.”
Russia, for their part, claimed Ukraine’s strike was a deliberate ploy to sabotage President Donald Trump’s bid at a peace process and said Ukraine was deliberately attacking residential blocks because they are allegedly “Nazis”.
U.S.-Ukraine talks began in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday morning, intended to establish to what degree America is able to draw Ukraine into later productive peace talks with Russia. President Donald Trump had earlier said Ukraine wasn’t serious about peace after Zelensky’s disastrous visit to the Oval Office in February, but Ukraine has since insisted it is now ready to talk.
The Ukrainian team in Saudi Arabia hailed the talks on Tuesday as constructive and had said they hoped they would lead to a “just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
Breitbart News
Read the full article .
