Ukraine says Russian strikes kill 4 in Kyiv region

• Russia fired nearly 500 drones and missiles (430 drones and 68 missiles) across five regions, killing four people and wounding 15 in the Kyiv area while causing "islanding" damage to the power grid that triggered rolling blackouts.
• Diplomatic Fallout: President Zelensky warned that Russia is exploiting the US-Iran war as a distraction to escalate attacks, noting that peace talks have been "derailed" as Western allies redirect critical air-defense resources to the Middle East.

Russian drone and missile strikes near Ukraine's capital and several other regions killed four people and wounded 15, the authorities said Saturday.

Mykola Kalashnyk, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said four of the 15 injured were in critical condition and four people had died in attacks that "targeted ordinary settlements in the region: residential buildings, educational institutions, businesses, and critical infrastructure".

He said he had "information about 30 damaged sites".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said rescue and clearing up operations were underway "in the Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Mykolaiv regions".

"The main target for the Russians was the energy infrastructure of the Kyiv region, but unfortunately, there were also direct hits on and damage to ordinary residential buildings, schools, and civilian businesses," he said.

The air force said Russia had launched 430 drones and 68 missiles, adding that air defence had intercepted 402 and 68 of them respectively.

Peace talks spearheaded by the United States aiming to halt more than four years of fighting have been derailed by the US-‘Israeli’ war with Iran.

Zelensky on Friday also expressed concern that the temporary easing of US sanctions on Russian oil would bring Moscow new revenue to finance its war effort.