Zürcher Nachrichten - Mass Ukraine drone barrage kills 4 in Russia: Moscow

Air defences shot down 556 drones overnight across the country, Russia's defence ministry said, with another 30 drones neutralised after dawn in one of the largest Ukrainian barrages of the ongoing conflict so far.

These interceptions -- far above the few dozen more often reported -- took place across 14 Russian regions, as well as the Crimean peninsula annexed from Ukraine and the Black and Azov seas, the ministry added, with the region around the capital among the worst-hit.

"A woman was killed as a result of a UAV hitting a private house. One more person is trapped under rubble," the Moscow region's Governor Andrey Vorobyov posted on Telegram, adding that the early morning attack also claimed the lives of two men.

"Since 3 o'clock in the morning, air defence forces have been repelling a large-scale UAV attack on the capital region," he said, adding four people were wounded and infrastructure facilities had been targeted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had vowed on Friday to launch more retaliatory strikes, a day after a Russian attack on Kyiv killed 24 people and injured around 50 more.

Within Russia's capital, local authorities reported that air defence systems had intercepted more than 80 drones overnight, wounding 12 people.

"Minor damage has been recorded at the sites where debris fell," Mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram.

One of the strikes wounded construction workers at a job site near an oil and gas refinery, Sobyanin said.

"Refinery production has not been disrupted. Three residential buildings were damaged," he added.

While the capital region is often subjected to drone attacks, the city of Moscow, around 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the Ukrainian border, is less frequently targeted.

In the Belgorod region which borders Ukraine, one man was killed overnight in the Shebekino district in a drone attack on a lorry, regional authorities said.

The Ukrainian air force said meanwhile it had intercepted 279 Russian drones out of a total of 287 launched.

- 'Entirely justified' -

Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have been at a standstill, with Kyiv unwilling to accept Moscow's maximalist demands for territory in the eastern Donbas region.

While the United States has pushed for both sides to come to the negotiating table, the talks have noticeably stalled since Washington's attention turned to the US-Israeli war on Iran in late February.

After the expiration of a three-day truce on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II -- which both sides accused the other of violating -- Moscow and Kyiv have returned to trading attacks.

In response to daily bombardments by the Russian military for more than four years, Ukraine has regularly struck within Russia.

In the wake of Moscow's latest attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Zelensky insisted that Kyiv's strategy of targeting military and energy sites within Russia, so as to strike at Moscow's ability to finance the war effort, was "entirely justified".

Kyiv's allies have accused Russia of mocking diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

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J.Hasler--NZN