Russian forces deliberately struck a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel near Ukraine’s Chornobyl power plant, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, in an “extremely vile” attack that did not lead to a spike in radiation.
The strike significantly damaged a fuel-reception building metres away from where “large amounts of nuclear material” are stored, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which said it had been briefed by Ukraine.
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.
Russia has not publicly commented on the alleged strike on the facility, which is located around 15 km (9 miles) from the decommissioned Chornobyl plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
“An extremely critical infrastructure facility – and an extremely vile Russian strike,” Zelenskiy wrote on X, adding Russia had used a Shahed attack drone.
“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.”
The IAEA issued a subsequent statement saying its monitors had found the strike caused “significant structural damage to part of the fuel reception building, including to the IAEA safeguards office located there.”
The team “observed damage to the building’s facade, walls and staircase, with shattered glass shards, broken bricks and other debris seen scattered on the ground.”
Radiation levels remained normal, the IAEA said, indicating the incident caused no radioactive contamination.
In February 2025, a Russian Shahed drone damaged a containment arch over the Chornobyl reactor that was destroyed in an 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.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk and by Rhea Rose Abraham )
