With aid from the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD [7]), Ukraine has opened a special fund for the restoration of the protective structure over the entombed reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The €30 million agreement was signed on April 26 during a Chernobyl International Conference on Recovery & Nuclear Safety, actually held at the site of the disaster that took place on that date in 1986. The "New Safe Confinement" structure has since 2016 provided a second layer of protection over the "sarcophagus" that Soviet authorities built to entomb the exploded reactor after the disaster. It was breached by a Russian drone strike [9] on the site in February 2025.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that the strike was deliberate, pointing to the drone's low flight altitude as evidence. A criminal investigation has been opened under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine—violation of the laws and customs of war.
Zelensky also announced that he held a meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA [10]) director-general Rafael Grossi on the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. "I emphasized the unacceptability of formalizing and legitimizing Russia's presence at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant," he wrote on the X social media platform [11]. (World Nuclear News [12], Chosun [13], AA Energy Terminal [14], The Guardian [15], BelSat [16],
Russian forces briefly occupied the Chernobyl site at the start of the war in 2022, but later withdrew. Russia continues to occupy and have operational control of the Zaporizhzhia facility, Europe's largest nuclear power plant.
Strikes across Ukraine, Russian-occupied territory and Russia killed at least 16 people on the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The greatest toll was in Dnipro, where Russian drone and missile strikes on the city killed at least nine. (AP [17])
See our last reports on the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia [18] nuclear plants.
