KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian drone with a high-explosive warhead hit the protecting confinement shell of the Chernobyl Nuclear Energy Plant within the Kyiv area through the night time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned Friday.
Radiation ranges haven’t elevated, Zelenskyy and the U.N. atomic company mentioned.
Russian officers made no instant remark, and it was not doable to independently verify Ukraine’s declare of Russian accountability.
Zelenskyy mentioned that the drone strike broken the construction and began a hearth, which has been put out.
The Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company mentioned the strike occurred at 1:50 a.m. native time (2350 GMT). It mentioned there was “no indication of a breach within the … interior containment” shell.
The shell is a protecting cowl constructed across the fourth reactor of the plant, which exploded in 1986, inflicting one of many worst nuclear accidents in nuclear historical past.
In-built 2016, the shell is designed to restrict the discharge of radioactivity left within the reactor to the environment.
The three-year Russia-Ukraine war has introduced repeated warnings of risks to Ukraine’s 4 nuclear vegetation, particularly on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which is Europe’s largest and one of many 10 largest on the planet.
IAEA chief Rafael Rossi, mentioned on X that the strike on the CNPP and the latest improve in army exercise close to the Zaporizhzhia plant “underline persistent nuclear security dangers,” including that the IAEA stays “on excessive alert.”
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