Ukraine said a Russian drone partially destroyed a building at a spent nuclear-fuel storage facility near Chornobyl, though officials reported no injuries and stable radiation levels.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Sunday of deliberately striking a nuclear-fuel storage facility near the Chornobyl power plant, calling the attack “extremely vile” and warning that Moscow was again putting nuclear safety at risk.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian drone hit a facility used for spent nuclear fuel near the inactive Chornobyl plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Authorities said radiation levels remained stable after the strike, no injuries were reported and a fire caused by the impact was extinguished.
“Today, the Russians again struck the special territory around the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. A ‘shahed’ hit one of the buildings of the Centralized Spent Fuel Storage Facility,” Zelenskyy wrote on X, referring to a commonly used Russian attack drone.
“An extremely critical infrastructure facility – and an extremely vile Russian strike,” he said.
Ukraine’s General Staff and the country’s state atomic agency said in separate statements that the attack partially destroyed a container-receiving building at the storage site. Officials said spent fuel was not being stored in that building when it was struck.
The facility is located about 15 kilometers, or 9 miles, from the Chornobyl plant, where a reactor exploded and melted down in April 1986. The disaster spread radioactive contamination across parts of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Europe and remains a central point of concern in any fighting near nuclear infrastructure.
Russia had not publicly commented on the alleged strike.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the reported attack fits a broader pattern of Russian conduct around nuclear sites.
“This is not the first time Russian forces are putting Ukrainian nuclear facilities at risk,” Sybiha wrote on X.
“Russia’s nuclear blackmail and threats to nuclear safety are systemic, deliberate, and unacceptable,” he said.
The strike near Chornobyl follows a February 2025 incident in which Ukraine said a Russian attack drone damaged the containment arch built over the reactor destroyed in the 1986 explosion. Russia denied responsibility for that attack.
Chornobyl is not the only nuclear site affected by the war. Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly accused each other of attacks involving the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
Sunday’s reported strike added to concerns over the vulnerability of nuclear facilities and related infrastructure as the war continues, with Ukrainian officials saying the latest attack damaged a building at a spent-fuel storage complex even though the site did not report elevated radiation or casualties.
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