KYIV: Ukraine has accused Russia of carrying out rocket strikes that killed at least 14 civilians in areas near a nuclear power plant, as the Group of Seven (G7) warned that Moscow’s control of the facility “endangers the region.”

Overnight strikes in central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region killed 13 people and injured 11, with five reported to be in serious condition, Valentin Reznichenko, the region’s governor, wrote on Telegram on Wednesday.

“It was a terrible night,” he wrote, urging residents to shelter when they hear air raid sirens. “I am asking and begging you. … Don’t let the Russians kill you.”

A woman died after Russian missiles slammed into a village in the Zaporizhzhia region on Wednesday morning, local governor Oleksandr Starukh wrote on Telegram.

Most of the casualties were in the town of Marganets, just across the Dnipro River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest.

Regional council head Mykola Lukashuk said the strikes had hit a local power line, leaving thousands of people without electricity.

G7 call

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of recent shelling around the plant, which has six reactors.

Kyiv said Moscow had stationed hundreds of troops and stored ammunition at the facility since taking it over on March 4, shortly after starting its invasion on February 24.

The tensions have revived memories of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Soviet Ukraine, which killed hundreds of people and spread radioactive contamination over much of Europe.

The G7, which groups seven of the world’s most industrialized nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — condemned Russia’s occupation and called on Moscow to immediately hand back full control of the plant.

Ukrainian staff operating the plant must be able to work “without threats or pressure” and Russia’s control of the plant “endangers the region,” G7 foreign ministers said in a statement.

The strikes came a day after major blasts at the Saky airfield, a key military base in the Russianannexed Crimean Peninsula.

Moscow insisted that the explosions were caused by detonating ammunition rather than Ukrainian fire, and Ukraine has not claimed responsibility.

‘A lot of shooting’

Fighting also raged in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops are gradually advancing.

Strikes in the city of Bakhmut killed at least six people and injured three others, Pavlo Kyrylenko, its regional governor, said on Telegram, adding that 12 residential buildings were damaged.

The city of Soledar was under constant shelling, Agence FrancePresse (AFP) reporters saw, as Russian troops attempted to drive out Ukrainian forces and seize a foothold toward Bakhmut.

The echoes of cluster bombs and artillery bounced off apartment buildings with their windows shattered, while roads were cratered and shops boarded up or destroyed.

The city was shrouded with black and white smoke arising from artillery and air strikes.

Some of those who remain now live underground in cellars ill-suited as bomb shelters.

The war has severely hampered grain supply from Ukraine, leading to an international food crisis, as it is one of the world’s biggest producers.

Some ships have been able to leave Ukrainian ports in recent days after a deal with Russia brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.

The first exports of wheat should start next week under the agreement, top UN official Frederick Kenney said on Wednesday.

The first grain shipment to leave on the Sierra Leone-flagged vessel Razoni departed the Black Sea port of Odesa on August 1 and had been expected to dock in the Lebanese port of Tripoli at the weekend.

But the Ukrainian embassy said a new buyer for the shipment was being sought after the original Lebanese buyer canceled the order.

Western countries have imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on Moscow, raising fears that Russia may cut off gas supplies.

European Union members have started putting into place different measures to save energy, with air-conditioning curbs coming into force in Spain on Wednesday and Austria’s capital Vienna dimming streetlights.