Russia attacks Chernobyl nuclear facility, Ukraine reports no radiation spike

Russia launched an attack on a critical infrastructure facility near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on June 7, damaging a container handling building, Ukrainian officials reported. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the strike as "exceptionally cowardly" and deliberate, emphasizing that it targeted a nuclear infrastructure site.

Energoatom, Ukraine's state nuclear operator, confirmed the attack on the storage facility for spent nuclear fuel located within the Chernobyl plant's exclusion zone. The company stated that the container reception building was partially destroyed but stressed that no spent nuclear fuel was present in the damaged structure at the time of the strike.

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This is an exceptionally cowardly Russian attack. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Energy, and all our services are already working to ensure that each of our partners knows what happened. Russia deliberately struck this nuclear infrastructure facility.

President Zelenskyy assured that background radiation levels have not exceeded normal limits, although he noted that Russia's aggressive actions have certainly surpassed acceptable boundaries. Ukrainian rescuers successfully extinguished a fire that erupted at the facility following the Russian strike.

This incident occurs amid ongoing concerns about nuclear safety in Ukraine, particularly following Russia's occupation of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant since 2022. The Chernobyl site itself, the location of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986, is still under a new sarcophagus covering the damaged reactor No. 4. The attack has reignited fears about the potential for a nuclear threat in Europe.

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But it certainly has exceeded the norms in terms of Russia's aggressive actions.