Russian Drone Strikes Nuclear Fuel Site Near Chornobyl
Ukraine's president says Russia struck a nuclear fuel storage facility near Chornobyl with a drone, damaging a building meters from nuclear material though causing no radiation spike.
According to New York Post, the attack significantly damaged a fuel-reception building located mere meters from where substantial quantities of nuclear material are stored. The strike was reportedly carried out using a Shahed attack drone.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed it had been briefed by Ukrainian authorities on the incident. Ukraine’s state atomic agency Energoatom clarified that no spent fuel was stored in the targeted building at the time of the attack. A resulting fire was successfully extinguished with no injuries reported.
Zelenskiy condemned the strike as reflecting Russia’s growing recklessness. Writing on X, the Ukrainian president described it as an extremely vile Russian strike on critical infrastructure.
While radiation monitoring showed no readings exceeding normal background levels, Zelenskiy noted there remains significant concern about Russia’s escalating brazenness in targeting such sensitive facilities.
The storage facility sits approximately 15 kilometers from the Chornobyl plant itself, the site of the catastrophic 1986 nuclear disaster that remains the worst in world history.
Moscow has not issued any public statement regarding the alleged strike. Russia routinely denies responsibility for attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure despite widespread documented evidence of systematic targeting of civilian and critical facilities.
The IAEA announced that a team would soon visit the damaged site to conduct a thorough inspection and assess the full impact of the strike.
This incident follows a February 2025 attack in which a Russian Shahed drone damaged the containment arch constructed over the Chornobyl reactor destroyed in the April 1986 explosion and meltdown. Russia denied involvement in that strike as well.
Both Kyiv and Moscow have exchanged accusations regarding attacks on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, which stands as Europe’s largest nuclear facility. The plant has become a flashpoint in the ongoing conflict, with both sides claiming the other is endangering nuclear safety.
With information from New York Post
