Moscow/Kiev.- Ukraine is attempting to impose a truce with Russia with the largest drone attack of the war, which left three dead and nearly twenty wounded in the Moscow region on Tuesday.
"It is important to highlight that the kyiv regime is attacking social infrastructure and residential buildings," he denounced. Dmitry Peskov, Russian presidential spokesman.
Meanwhile, he added, the Russian army "continues to strike military or quasi-military targets," although this Saturday Russian troops killed eleven people and wounded fifty in a missile and drone attack in the Donetsk region.
With the support of France and the United Kingdom, the Ukrainian President, Volodímir Zelenski, Last week, he proposed an air and sea truce as a preliminary step to starting a peace process, an initiative that the United States does not view negatively.
Rain of drones
Russian air defenses were forced into intensive action overnight to repel the largest drone offensive of the conflict, surpassing the massive attacks launched by kyiv in January and February of this year.
According to the Ministry of Defense, a total of 343 unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down, nearly 100 of them in the Moscow region. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said they were targeting targets in the capital.
In fact, fragments of fixed-wing drones caused damage to several residential buildings in the city of 13 million inhabitants.
Peskov emphasized that the Russian anti-aircraft batteries performed "very well," preventing further damage—six of the drones were headed toward the Kursk nuclear power plant, according to the Ministry of Defense—and fatalities.
However, according to the Russian Ministry of Health, three people died in the Moscow region, less than 20 kilometers from the capital.
In addition, 17 people, including three children, were injured in the enemy attack, of whom six remain hospitalized.
"Naturally, the supreme commander of the Armed forces (President Vladimir Putin) has been informed about this," Peskov said.
Ukraine insists on a ceasefire
Meanwhile, kyiv openly admitted that the motive for its attack was to pressure the Kremlin into accepting the truce proposal.
"This is another signal to Putin that he should be interested in an air ceasefire," said Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Combating Disinformation at the National Security Council of Ukraine, in a Telegram video.
The Ukrainian official did not hesitate to describe the drone attack as "the largest in history" against the Russian capital region and said that Putin's response would show whether Moscow is really interested in peace.
The reality is that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov already rejected the truce last week—calling it a "respite" for the Ukrainian army—as well as the deployment of European troops on Ukrainian territory, which he again today dismissed as an attempt to "save" the authorities in kyiv.
"What are the peacekeepers going to protect? The remnants of the Nazi regime in kyiv," he said.
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Meanwhile, some Russian politicians have already called for revenge and urged the Kremlin leader to take retaliatory measures against kyiv, which could include the Oreshnik hypersonic missiles, which already hit Ukraine in late 2024.
"The decision is up to the Supreme Commander, but I think it would be a good idea if it were not just an attack," said General Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Defense Committee of the Duma, or House of Representatives.
A threat to peace
Regarding the coincidence of the attack with the first round of Ukrainian-US negotiations this Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin warned that the massive attack could torpedo progress toward the start of peace negotiations.
"For now, there are no negotiations, so there's nothing to blow up. But it could cause significant damage to the current trend," Peskov said at a press conference.
In this regard, the Ministry of Defense stated that kyiv wanted to demonstrate "Ukraine's ability to continue military action" hours before the meeting in the Saudi city of Jeddah, although its plans were "thwarted" by the Russian military.
The barrage of drones also welcomed the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Feridun Sinirlioglu, who met with Lavrov.
In addition to thanking the Turkish diplomat for the first visit by an OSCE chief since 2021, Russian officials took him to the scene and showed him the aftermath of the bombing.
