A drone armed with a warhead hit the protective outer shell of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant early on Friday, punching a hole in the structure and briefly starting a fire, in an attack Kyiv blamed on Russia.
The Kremlin denied it was responsible.
Radiation levels at the shuttered plant in the Kyiv region — site of the world’s worst civilian nuclear incident — have not increased, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said, adding that the strike did not breach the plant’s inner containment shell.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The IAEA did not attribute blame, saying only that its team stationed at the site heard an explosion and was informed that a drone had struck the shell.
Fighting around nuclear plants has repeatedly raised fears of a catastrophe during three years of war, particularly in a country where many vividly remember the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which spewed radioactive fallout over much of the northern hemisphere.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is Europe’s biggest, has occasionally been hit by drones during the war without causing significant damage.
The strike came two days after US President Donald Trump upended Washington’s policy on Ukraine, saying he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the war. The move seemed to identify Putin as the only player that matters and looked set to sideline Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as well as European governments, in any peace talks.
The hit on Chernobyl occurred as Ukraine is being slowly pushed back by Russia’s bigger army along parts of the 1,000km front line and is desperately seeking more Western help.
Zelenskiy said a Russian drone with a high-explosive warhead hit the plant’s outer shell and started a fire, which has been put out. The shell was built in 2016 over another heavy concrete containment structure, which was placed on the plant’s fourth reactor soon after the 1986 disaster. Both shells seek to prevent radiation leaks.
The Ukrainian Emergency Service provided a photograph that showed a hole in the roof of the outer shield, which is a massive steel-and-concrete structure weighing about 40,000 tonnes and tall enough to fit Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral inside.
There was “no immediate danger” to the facility or risk of radioactive leaks, said Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Kyiv-based Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.
“The protective structure is strong and reliable, though it has been damaged,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Russia was responsible.
“There is no talk about strikes on nuclear infrastructure, nuclear energy facilities. Any such claim isn’t true. Our military doesn’t do that,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.
It was not possible to independently confirm who was behind the strike. Both sides frequently trade blame when nuclear sites come under attack.
In Munich, Germany, Zelenskiy told reporters that he thinks the blow against Chernobyl was a “very clear greeting from Putin and Russian Federation” to the conference.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the