Kyiv: A Russian drone with a high-explosive warhead hit the protective containment shell of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Kyiv region during the night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday.
Radiation levels have not increased, Zelenskyy and the UN atomic agency said.
Russian officials made no immediate comment, but later Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Ukrainian claims. “There is no talk about striking 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.
He suggested Ukrainian officials made the claim about an overnight strike because they wanted to thwart efforts to end the war through negotiations, after US President Donald Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin about reaching a peace deal.
The UN atomic agency did not attribute blame, saying only its team stationed at the site heard an explosion and were informed that a drone had struck the shell.
Zelenskyy said that the strike damaged the structure and started a fire, which has been put out. The strike came two days after US President Donald Trump said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss ending the war, in a move that seemed to identify Putin as the only player that matters and looked set to sideline Zelenskyy, as well as European governments, in any peace talks.
Zelenskyy claimed on Telegram that the Chernobyl strike showed that “Putin is certainly not preparing for negotiations” — a claim Ukrainian officials have repeatedly made.
“The only state in the world that can attack such facilities, occupy the territory of nuclear power plants, and conduct hostilities without any regard for the consequences is today’s Russia,” he wrote.