A Russian Shahed drone struck a building used to store spent nuclear fuel within the exclusion zone surrounding the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine in the early hours of Sunday, causing significant structural damage and sparking a fire. Ukrainian authorities confirmed that no radioactive material was present in the targeted reception building at the time of the strike, and that radiation levels across the site remained within established safety limits. No personnel were injured, and emergency crews extinguished the resulting blaze, which covered approximately 40 square metres.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack as deliberate and "extremely vile," saying it targeted critical infrastructure. "As of now, there is no heightening of radiation safety limits. But there is clearly a heightening of Russia's already sky-high arrogance," he said. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the strike as part of a pattern of systemic nuclear blackmail, noting it was not the first time Russian forces had endangered Ukrainian nuclear facilities. State nuclear operator Energoatom echoed that assessment, calling the attack evidence of the Kremlin "deliberately posing threats to nuclear and radiation safety." Russia has not publicly commented on the incident.
The struck facility — the Central Spent Fuel Storage facility — sits approximately 15 kilometres from the Chornobyl reactor site, the location of the world's worst nuclear accident on 26 April 1986, when an explosion and meltdown sent a radioactive cloud across much of Europe, causing decades of radiation-related illness and death. The storage facility, which opened in the early 2020s and was built partly to end Ukraine's dependence on Russia for spent fuel reprocessing, holds material from three Ukrainian nuclear power plants. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its experts were preparing to visit the site to assess the full extent of the damage, with Director General Rafael Grossi expressing concern over the incident. The IAEA noted that large quantities of nuclear material are stored just metres from the damaged building.
The attack is the latest in a series of strikes on nuclear infrastructure in Ukraine. In February 2025, a Russian drone damaged the protective containment arch built over the destroyed fourth reactor at Chornobyl — a steel structure constructed in 2016 to contain residual radiation. The director of the Chornobyl plant had warned earlier this year that even strikes near nuclear facilities could produce effects comparable to a localised earthquake, with potentially serious consequences. Both sides have also traded accusations of attacking the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe's largest — in south-eastern Ukraine, which Russia has occupied since early in the war.
The drone strike on the storage facility occurred against a backdrop of intensifying long-range aerial exchanges. Zelenskyy stated that Russia had fired 88 missiles, more than 3,000 attack drones, and 1,800 guided bombs at Ukraine over the preceding week. Also over the weekend, Russian strikes killed at least two people at a public transport stop in the Zaporizhzhia region and a man in the city of Dnipro. On Saturday, Ukraine carried out a long-range strike on Kronstadt, a historic naval town near St Petersburg. Zelenskyy was scheduled to meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in London on Sunday to discuss the ongoing conflict.