Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has blasted Putin after five people were killed in a strike on a nuclear facility near the Chernobyl power plant, officials said.
The leader condemned the ‘extremely vile’ attack which damaged a building around nine miles away from the plant.
The strike significantly damaged a fuel-reception building meters away from where ‘large amounts of nuclear material’ is stored, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Kyiv’s state atomic agency Energoatom said no spent fuel had been stored in the building at the time of the attack. A resulting fire was extinguished, and no injuries were reported.
The strike did not lead to a spike in radiation.
Russia has not publicly commented on the alleged strike on the facility near the Chornobyl plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
President Zelensky wrote on X: ‘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.
‘An extremely critical infrastructure facility – and an extremely vile Russian strike.’
The strike significantly damaged a fuel-reception building less than 10 miles away from the Chernobyl power plant
The Ukrainian President said Russia ‘deliberately struck’ the nuclear infrastructure facility.
He added: ‘As of now, there are no readings exceeding normal background radiation levels.
‘But there is certainly an increase in Russia’s brazenness, which long ago went off the charts. Ukrainian first responders extinguished the fire at this facility after the strike. And real new steps by the world are needed so that the Russians feel that this terrorist war of theirs is a blow to Russia itself.’
The Ukrainian leader said that Russian strikes also hit civilian facilities in 13 regions last night.
Over the past week, he said Russia launched 88 missiles, more than 3,250 attack drones, and around 1,800 guided aerial bombs against Ukraine.
Mr Zelensky added: ‘Pressure on Russia must be increased. Thank you to everyone who’s helping!’
Moscow and Kyiv have intensified drone strikes on each other in recent months as US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, now in its fifth year, remain stalled and sidetracked by the conflict in the Middle East.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet his allies in London later Sunday for talks on how to pressure Russia to end the fighting, after Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected direct peace talks with the Ukrainian leader.
In a statement, the IAEA said a team would soon visit the site ‘to inspect the impact.’
In February 2025, a Russian Shahed drone damaged a containment arch over the Chornobyl reactor that was destroyed in the April 1986 explosion and meltdown. Russia, which regularly attacks Ukrainian cities and infrastructure with drones and missiles, denied responsibility.
Kyiv and Moscow have also traded accusations of attacking the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine, Europe’s largest.
In April, Zelensky accused Putin of ‘nuclear terrorism’ on the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
In a social media post marking the Chernobyl anniversary, Zelensky said Russia, through its invasion, was ‘again bringing the world to the brink of a man-made disaster’.
He highlighted how Russian drones regularly pass over Chernobyl and that one had hit its protective shell last year.
In January, the power plant lost its external power supply after a series of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian expert in electronic warfare, warned at the time that the missiles being launched at energy infrastructure were landing in proximity to nuclear reactors – some just 300 metres away.
If a Russian strike against such a substation were to miss, it could trigger a disaster, he warned.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the ‘extremely vile’ Russian strike
Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster, in May, 1986
Last February, a Russian drone attack on the plant significantly damaged a radiation shelter covering one of the reactors, sparking fears of a radioactive leak.
Zelensky said at the time that a Russian attack drone ‘with a high-explosive warhead struck the shelter protecting the world from radiation at the destroyed 4th power unit of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.’
He said the shelter was damaged but that the fire had since been extinguished.
The cover is used to prevent radiation after the 1986 nuclear disaster, which sent a radioactive cloud across Europe.
The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the worst civilian nuclear disaster in history and changed global perceptions of nuclear energy.
Thousands are estimated to have died as a result of exposure to the radiation, though assessments of the precise human toll vary.
Some 600,000 people involved in the clean-up operation – known as ‘liquidators’ – were exposed to high levels of radiation.
A 2005 UN report put the number of confirmed and projected deaths at 4,000 in the three worst-affected countries.
Greenpeace in 2006 estimated that the disaster had caused close to 100,000 deaths.
