By Dan Peleschuk
KYIV, March 14 (Reuters) - Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, killing six people and inflicting damage across several regions of the country, Ukrainian officials said.
Five of the dead were in Kyiv region outside the capital, where President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces targeted energy infrastructure, but also damaged residential buildings, schools and businesses. Fifteen people were injured.
Zelenskiy 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.
Later in the day, 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.
Reuters Television footage showed emergency crews at work amid piles of rubble and twisted metal. Windows and frames on balconies were smashed.
"The second attack was strong. The kitchen window flew out, as did those in the living room and bedroom, everything went into a roar. I ran and got slightly injured," Olha Kiyashko, 65, told Reuters.
"I've got no strength left. They took away our pension years— the years we could have lived on, the years we'd planned and counted on. All our health is gone."
Saturday's strikes come as the Iran conflict has distracted international attention from a U.S.-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 U.S. and its allies in the Gulf have fended off Iranian strikes.
'NO WAY RUSSIA WILL STOP'
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.
"There's no way Russia will stop," said local resident Natalia Fetko, 57, whose building was damaged in the strike. "Nothing is enough for them."
Damage was recorded in four districts outside the capital, according to regional military administrator Mykola Kalashnyk.
Saturday's attack also prompted NATO member Poland to scramble jets to protect its airspace, but no violations were observed, Warsaw's military said.
In Moldova, on Ukraine's western border, the Foreign Ministry denounced what it said was an intrusion by a Russian drone into its airspace in a border district, saying Moscow's actions undermined regional security and posed a danger to its citizens.
(Additional reporting by Yurii Kovalenko, Serhiy Chaliy and Alexander Tanas; Editing by Toby Chopra, Gareth Jones, Rod Nickel, Ron Popeski and Diane Craft)
