A Russian Shahed drone smashed into the reception building of a spent nuclear fuel storage facility near the disused Chornobyl nuclear power plant early on Sunday, in what Ukraine’s president described as a deliberate and “extremely vile” attack. The strike, which took place at around 2am, triggered a fire covering about 40 sq meters that was later extinguished, according to Energoatom, the state nuclear power operator. No personnel were injured and radiation levels at the site remained within normal limits, the company said. The building was empty of containers at the time.
“As of now, there is no heightening of radiation safety limits. But there is clearly an heightening of Russia’s already sky-high arrogance,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said as he prepared to meet Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz at a summit in London. “It was [a] critical infrastructure facility. And an extremely vile Russian attack.”
“Russian drone hit spent nuclear fuel storage near Chornobyl; Zelenskyy calls attack 'extremely vile'.”
The attack came as part of a broader Russian assault on Ukraine overnight. Zelenskyy said Moscow’s forces hit 13 civilian facilities across the country, with Ukrainian media reporting at least seven people killed and 61 injured. Over the past week, Russia has launched 88 missiles, 3,250 drones and 1,800 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine, the president added.
The targeted facility, a centralized spent nuclear fuel storage site designed to provide long-term storage for fuel from Ukraine’s nuclear plants, is located about nine miles from the Chornobyl plant that suffered the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986. Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said on X: “Russia’s nuclear blackmail and threats to nuclear safety are systemic, deliberate, and unacceptable.” The International Atomic Energy Agency said its experts were preparing to visit the site and confirmed that radiation levels remained within established levels despite significant damage.
The strike followed a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Russia on Saturday, which targeted the historic naval town of Kronstadt near St Petersburg on the final day of the city’s economic forum. One person was killed and an oil depot caught fire, according to Russian exile media. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its air defences had destroyed 500 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones in the past 24 hours.
Tensions have escalated further after Vladimir Putin rejected a meeting with Zelenskyy, who had sent a letter calling for peace talks. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov criticized the Ukrainian leader for publicizing the letter, saying: “If you want to deliver a letter, deliver it. If you use a megaphone, don’t call it a letter.”