DAWN ATTACK | Russian officials say a total of 337 drones were downed, including 91 over Moscow; three workers were killed, three children among 18  injured

Agencies MOSCOW

High-stakes talks between senior delegations from Ukraine and the United States on how to end the three-year war with Russia  opened in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, hours after Kyiv launched its biggest-ever drone attack on Moscow, killing at least three workers at a meat warehouse, injuring 18, including three children, as residences were also struck. According  to Russian officials, a total of 337 drones were downed over Russia, including 91 over Moscow region and 126 over Kursk region,  where Ukrainian forces have been pulling back, the defence ministry said. The attack caused a short shutdown  of Moscow’s four airports, Russian officials said.

The dawn attack unfurled as US-Ukraine  talks were  to begin in the Saudi capital, Jeddah,  to seek an end of the three-year-war and as Russian forces tried to encircle thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the western Russian region of Kursk. Kyiv has suffered repeated mass strikes from Russia throughout the war and said it was targeted by a ballistic missile and 126 drones on Tuesday. It has tried to hit back against its vastly bigger neighbour with repeated drone raids on oil refineries, airfields and even early-warning radar stations.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Tuesday's was the biggest Ukrainian drone attack on the city, which along with the surrounding region has a population of at least 21 million and is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe.

A senior Russian lawmaker suggested Russia should retaliate for Tuesday's raid by striking Ukraine with the "Oreshnik" hypersonic missile which Moscow fired on Ukraine last November after the US and UK allowed Kyiv to strike deeper into Russia with Western missiles. Colonel General Andrei Kartapolov, head of parliament's defence committee and a former deputy defence minister, said such a decision was up to President Vladimir Putin. "But I think it would be useful - and not just one," he said.

Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov posted a picture of a wrecked apartment with windows blown out. But there was no sign of panic: commuters went to work as normal. Russia's aviation watchdog said flights were suspended at all four of Moscow's airports after the attacks, though they were later reopened. Flights were diverted to other cities. Though  US  President Donald Trump says he wants to deliver peace in Ukraine, the war is heating up on the battlefield with a major Russian spring offensive in Kursk and a series of Ukrainian drone attacks deep into Russia.

Russia has developed myriad electronic "umbrellas" over Moscow and key installations, with additional advanced internal layers over strategic buildings, and a complex web of air defences to shoot down drones before they reach the Kremlin in the heart of the capital. The war, the biggest in Europe since World War Two, has combined grinding trench and artillery warfare with the major innovation of drones. Both Moscow and Kyiv have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production.