{"id":1011311,"date":"2026-06-07T14:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T14:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1011311\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T14:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T14:04:20","slug":"russian-drone-hits-nuclear-fuel-facility-near-chernobyl-ukraine-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1011311\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian drone hits nuclear fuel facility near Chernobyl, Ukraine says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine<\/a> said Moscow\u2019s forces struck a nuclear fuel storage facility near the mothballed Chernobyl<\/a> power plant north of Kyiv, an incident that drew a sharp retort from the UN\u2019s atomic watchdog.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian military said a Russian<\/a> Shahed drone hit a building that is part of the central spent fuel storage facility within the Chernobyl exclusion zone. A small fire was extinguished within an hour, the Ukrainian General Staff posted on Telegram.<\/p>\n

It comes as Ukraine launched a drone barrage at St Petersburg on Saturday, the final day of Russia\u2019s premier investment forum, hours after president Vladimir Putin<\/a> rejected a proposal for talks with Kyiv and ahead of a scheduled meeting between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> and European leaders.<\/p>\n

The International Atomic Energy Agency<\/a> (IAEA) said it had been informed of the Chernobyl attack and its team would soon visit the facility and inspect the damage.<\/p>\n

The facility is used to provide long-term storage for spent nuclear fuel from Ukraine\u2019s operating atomic power plants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strike caused significant damage to the facility\u2019s fuel reception building \u2013 including to the facade, windows and doors \u2013 and nearby buildings were also affected by the blast wave,\u201d the UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog said. Radiation levels at the facility remain within established limits, according to Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s foreign ministry and energy ministry \u201care already working to ensure that each of our partners knows what has happened,\u201d Zelenskiy said on X, describing the strike as \u201cextremely vile\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of now, there are no readings exceeding normal background radiation levels. But there is certainly an increase in Russia\u2019s brazenness,\u201d Zelenskiy said.<\/p>\n

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, said the incident was \u201cdeeply concerning as it occurred at a facility containing large amounts of nuclear material, held in storage just metres away from the attacked building\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The \u20ac500m hole in Chernobyl\u2019s roof: A race to repair damage from a Russian droneOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Chernobyl incident comes a week after Moscow claimed a Ukrainian drone had hit the idled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeast Ukraine, which Russian forces have controlled since the first weeks of the war.<\/p>\n

The IAEA also inspected the Zaporizhzhia site following the strike and confirmed it was a drone attack. Ukraine\u2019s southern military command denied any strikes against the facility.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, UK prime minister Keir Starmer is expected to host Ukraine\u2019s president on Sunday night along with French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss a path to engage Moscow in negotiations to end the war, at a time US-led efforts with Russia have gone dormant.<\/p>\n

Putin on Friday rejected Zelenskiy\u2019s call to meet and negotiate an end to the war, now well into its fifth year, which the Ukrainian president made in a lengthy open letter on Thursday that suggested Switzerland, Turkey and Arab countries as potential venues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see no sense\u201d in holding a meeting with Zelenskiy, Putin said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. The Russian leader said he had skimmed through Zelenskiy\u2019s letter and said the tone was \u201crude\u201d.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s drone strikes at St Petersburg, about 1,000km north of Kyiv, and the surrounding region set a defence ministry facility ablaze and disrupted operations at Russia\u2019s second-largest commercial airport for several hours.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Russia is showing signs of weakness in Ukraine. So it hits harderOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The two sides continued an exchange of drone fire into Sunday. Russia\u2019s defence ministry said it intercepted 95 Ukrainian drones overnight across more than a dozen regions. Ukraine reported attacks from 236 Russian drones of which 215 were shot down in the north, south and east of the country.<\/p>\n

Separately on Sunday, Ukrainian forces struck the Chongar Bridge, temporarily blocking an access point to the Crimean peninsula, Valdimir Saldo, governor of the occupied Kherson region in southeast Ukraine, said on Telegram. \u2013 Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine said Moscow\u2019s forces struck a nuclear fuel storage facility near the mothballed Chernobyl power plant north of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1011312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7654],"tags":[41755,2000,299,123631,332,657,9041,20729],"class_list":["post-1011311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine","tag-chernobyl","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-international-atomic-energy-agency","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-crisis","tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116709206871847537","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1011311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1011311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1011312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1011311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1011311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1011311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}