Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of exploiting its position in a nuclear power plant it had seized to target a nearby town in a rocket attack that killed at least 13 people and left many others seriously wounded. FIGHTING * Russia launched 80 Grad rockets at the town of Marhanets across the Dnipro river from the Zaporizhzhia plant on Tuesday, Valentyn Reznychenko, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said, adding that more than 20 buildings were damaged. * There was no immediate comment from Russia, which has accused Ukraine of shelling the plant, something Kyiv denies.

Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of exploiting its position in a nuclear power plant it had seized to target a nearby town in a rocket attack that killed at least 13 people and left many others seriously wounded.

FIGHTING * Russia launched 80 Grad rockets at the town of Marhanets across the Dnipro river from the Zaporizhzhia plant on Tuesday, Valentyn Reznychenko, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said, adding that more than 20 buildings were damaged.

* There was no immediate comment from Russia, which has accused Ukraine of shelling the plant, something Kyiv denies. * After an IAEA warning of a "very real risk of a nuclear disaster" at the plant, G7 foreign ministers demanded that Russia hand it back, something Moscow seems unlikely to do.

* Two U.S. newspapers cited unnamed Ukrainian officials as saying Ukrainian special forces had carried out an attack on Tuesday on an air base on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, destroying military aircraft. * Moscow had said the explosions were detonations of stored ammunition. Kyiv has not taken responsibility for the attacks.

Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield reports. DIPLOMACY

* China's ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, called the United States the "main instigator" of the crisis in Ukraine, accusing Washington of backing Moscow into a corner with repeated expansions of the NATO defence alliance and support for forces seeking to align Ukraine with the European Union. ECONOMY

* Ukraine's overseas creditors backed its request for a two-year freeze on payments on almost $20 billion in international bonds, according to a regulatory filing on Wednesday, a move that will allow it to avoid a debt default. * The second commercial ship to arrive in a Ukrainian port since the start of Russia's invasion has docked in the port of Chornomorsk and is ready to load grain, Ukraine's infrastructure minister said.

* Russia's pipeline monopoly Transneft said oil transit via the southern leg of the Druzhba pipeline had resumed, RIA news agency reported, almost a week after it had stopped, affecting supplies to Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. * Global oil prices had dropped partly in anticipation of the resumption.

* Russia's government has received requests for extra state spending of around 5 trillion roubles ($83 billion) annually for the 2023-2025 period, the finance ministry said. (Compiled by Michael Perry, Philippa Fletcher and John Stonestreet)