Ukraine accuses Russia of using Zaporizhia as a "nuclear shield"
Ukraine accused Russia on Wednesday of exploiting its location at a nuclear power plant it had seized and targeting a nearby town with a missile attack that killed at least 13 and seriously wounded many more.
Marjanets, which Ukraine says has been targeted by Russia, is a town Moscow claims has been used by Ukrainian forces in the past to bomb Russian forces holed up at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which Russia seized in March.
Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of endangering the safety of the huge station, the largest in Europe, by exchanging attacks in its vicinity.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged both sides to exercise restraint, warning of a "very real risk of nuclear catastrophe".
On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven major industrialized countries demanded that Russia immediately return control of the plant to Ukraine, something that Moscow is unlikely to do.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the Ukrainian accusations of a missile attack on Marjanets, and Reuters was not able to independently verify these accusations.
Moscow says it does not intentionally target civilians in what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine in order to preemptively protect its security against NATO expansion.
Andrei Yermak, chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, accused Russia of launching attacks on Ukrainian towns from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, knowing that his country would not respond because the response would be dangerous.
"Eighty missiles were fired at residential buildings," Yermak wrote in a post on the messaging service Telegram, referring to the attack on Marjanets.
Valentin Ryzhnichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine, said on Wednesday that the Russian attack on Marjanets was carried out using 80 Grad missiles.
He added that more than 20 buildings were damaged in the town on the other side of the Dnipro River, from the power plant.
He added that the same attack destroyed a power line and left several thousand residents without electricity.
He said that a hotel, two schools, a concert hall, the main municipal building and other administrative buildings were bombed.
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