KYIV: Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, killing five people and causing damage across several regions of the country, Ukrainian officials said.

The main target was energy infrastructure outside the capital Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, adding that residential buildings, schools and businesses were also damaged. He said the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions were also targeted in an attack that included around 430 drones and 68 missiles, most of which were downed by air defences.

The governor of the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov, said a residential area of the city of Zaporizhzhia had been hit by Russian-guided bombs, killing one person and injuring three. Photos posted online showed parts of buildings reduced to rubble. Saturday’s strikes come as the Iran conflict has distracted international attention from a US-backed peace push in the four-year war, which Kyiv says Moscow has no interest in ending.

“Russia will try to exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction here in Europe, in Ukraine,” Zelenskiy wrote on X.

He repeated his call for Kyiv’s partners to boost production of air-defence weapons, stocks of which have been diminishing as the US and its allies in the Gulf have fended off Iranian strikes.

Russia’s winter attacks on Ukraine have left swathes of major cities without power or heating, part of a campaign to weaken resolve as Moscow’s troops press a battlefield offensive and demand Kyiv cede more territory in the east.

Ukraine’s forces have targeted Russian strategic infrastructure such as oil refineries, depots and terminals in long-range strikes.

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said on Saturday that consumers in six regions were without electricity after the overnight strikes and Russian shelling of frontline areas.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2026