Russian drone hit nuclear fuel storage facility near Chernobyl, Ukraine says
A Russian drone struck a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel near Ukraine‘s disused Chernobyl power plant, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday, adding that radiation levels at the site remained stable.
Read more The U.S. fought the flesh-eating screwworm for decades. Now it must begin again.
In separate statements, Kyiv’s General Staff and the state atomic agency said a container-receiving building had been partially destroyed, but that no spent fuel had been stored there at the time of the attack.
A resulting fire was extinguished, and no injuries were reported.
Russia has not publicly commented on the alleged attack on the facility, which is located around 9 miles from the Chernobyl plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
“This is not the first time Russian forces are putting Ukrainian nuclear facilities at risk,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
Read more This 1,000-year-old pine tree’s protector fears changing weather patterns
“Russia’s nuclear blackmail and threats to nuclear safety are systemic, deliberate, and unacceptable.”
In February 2025, a Russian attack drone damaged a containment arch over the Chernobyl reactor that was destroyed in the April 1986 explosion and meltdown. Russia denied responsibility.
Kyiv and Moscow have also traded accusations of attacking the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, Europe’s largest.
Read more Simone Biles reveals she had a health scare and describes ‘almost dying’
