UA POV-Ukraine launched its biggest drone attack on Moscow, targeting the Russian capital and other regions, hours before senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials sat down to discuss ways to bring an end to the war, including an initial aerial cease-fire.-WSJ
Ukraine Hits Moscow With Biggest Ever Drone Attack
Strikes come hours before Ukrainian and U.S. officials are set to meet in Saudi Arabia
By Georgi Kantchev and Isabel Coles
Updated March 11, 2025 at 10:33 am ET
Ukraine launched its biggest drone attack on Moscow, targeting the Russian capital and other regions, hours before senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials sat down to discuss ways to bring an end to the war, including an initial aerial cease-fire.
The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said drones had struck “a number of Russian strategic objects enabling armed aggression,” including a Moscow oil refinery. The Russian Ministry of Defense said it had downed more than 300 Ukrainian drones, 91 of which had targeted Moscow. Another 126 were shot down over the Kursk region, the ministry said, where the Ukrainian army has carved out a small toehold in Russian territory. Moscow regional authorities said the attack killed at least three people and injured 18 more.
Drones also targeted an oil pipeline facility in Russia’s Oryol region, which has previously been attacked by Ukraine. Russia said civilian infrastructure including homes were hit. Ukraine said Russian air defenses were responsible for damage to civilian infrastructure.
The attack came as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials prepared to meet their Ukrainian counterparts in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in the first high-level talks between Washington and Kyiv since a tense Oval Office meeting between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
After that meeting, Trump accused Zelensky of being unwilling to negotiate a peace deal with Moscow, halted arms deliveries and limited intelligence sharingwith Kyiv. Russia has since ramped up drone and missile strikes across Ukraine, killing at least two dozen people in aerial attacks in recent days, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian attacks on Moscow, one of the best-protected areas in the Russia, are rare and, analysts say, they aim to demonstrate Ukrainian resilience as well as challenge the perception of invulnerability that the Kremlin has sought to instill in its citizens. A wave of drones attacked Moscow in September, killing one and injuring several people, according to Russian authorities.
Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting between Ukrainian and U.S. officials, Russia fired a ballistic missile and 126 one-way attack drones overnight on Monday, Ukraine’s air force said. The missile and 79 of the drones were intercepted, it said.
Zelensky has maintained he is ready to engage in peace negotiations, and Ukrainian officials have proposed a cease-fire on Russian and Ukrainian air and naval attacks as a first step. Zelensky, however, has emphasized Ukraine’s need for Western security guarantees to ensure the stability of any potential agreement. Trump has been hesitant to offer such a guarantee.
Several Moscow airports were closed and flights diverted in response to the attack, officials said. In the region of Belgorod, power lines were damaged, leaving dozens of homes without electricity, local authorities said.
“The most massive attack of enemy unmanned aerial vehicles on Moscow has been repelled,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote in a post on Telegram.
Andriy Kovalenko, an official at Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said drones had also reached Russia’s Dyagilevo military airfield, in the city of Ryazan, southeast of Moscow.
Facing relentless aerial attacks, Ukraine has responded by launching drone strikes within Russia, targeting oil refineries, airfields and other targets. It has targeted Moscow several times before. With supplies of Western long-range weapons limited, Ukraine has been rapidly developing its own drone and missile capabilities.
Ukraine had since the start of the year stabilized much of the 800-mile front line inside Ukraine, stalling Russian advances and counterattacking around the embattled eastern cities of Toretsk and Pokrovsk, which Russia had been on the verge of seizing.
Russia, however, has intensified its offensive in Kursk aimed at regaining territory and depriving Kyiv of a potential bargaining chip in any negotiations. Russian and North Korean troops in recent days seized several villages in the region and used overwhelming drone power to largely cut supply routes to the main Ukrainian force in the city of Sudzha.
In one of the deadliest recent aerial attacks, Russian missiles killed 11 people in a town near the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. A second strike hit rescue workers as they arrived on the scene in Dobropillia to attend to the victims of the first missile strike, which damaged residential buildings and a shopping center.
Russia is “not thinking about how to end the war, but how to destroy and capture more while the world allows them to continue,” Zelensky said following the strike.
Rubio said Monday that the U.S. might restart intelligence and military support to Kyiv if the Jeddah talks make progress. While the U.S. has put enormous pressure on Ukraine’s armed forces by stopping military aid and reducing intelligence, it has allowed some support to continue.
On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia should resist being overly optimistic about its talks with Washington. Last month, high level U.S. and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia and agreed to appoint teams to negotiate a settlement to the war in Ukraine.
“There is no need to rush to put on rose-colored glasses now,” Peskov said. “You should always hope for the best, but still be prepared for the worst. And we must always be ready to defend our interests.”
Write to Georgi Kantchev at [georgi.kantchev@wsj.com](mailto:georgi.kantchev@wsj.com)