Ukraine says protective covering outside Chornobyl nuclear plant hit by Russian drone

A Russian drone caused significant damage to the radiation containment shelter at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday, an allegation the Kremlin denied.

Zelenskyy and the UN's energy watchdog both said that radiation levels remained normal after the incident, which came as top U.S., Ukrainian and European officials gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed Ukraine's claim as a "provocation," saying he did not have precise information on the alleged incident, but that Russia does not attack nuclear infrastructure.

Chornobyl was the site of the world's worst civil nuclear catastrophe, when one of its four reactors exploded in 1986. That reactor is now enveloped by a protective shelter to contain the lingering radiation.

The last working reactor at Chornobyl was shut down in 2000. Russia occupied the plant and the surrounding area for more than a month during its push toward the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, at the beginning of the invasion.

The Russian drone struck the shelter of the destroyed power unit at the plant, causing a fire that has since been extinguished, Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram app.

"According to initial assessments, the damage to the shelter is significant," he said.

Ukraine's emergency services spokesperson, Svitlana Vodolaha, said the attack caused damage to the shelter in a couple of areas.

The experts will work on verifying the exact scale of the attack, which took place around 2 a.m. local time, Vodolaha added on a Ukrainian television broadcast.

Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, posted photographs of the shelter with what appeared to be a small fire near the top of its vast arch.

"The only country in the world that attacks such sites, occupies nuclear power plants and wages war without any regard for the consequences is today's Russia," Zelenskyy said.

The shelter, known as the New Safe Confinement, is a hulking, arch-shaped steel and concrete structure that was completed in 2019 to cover an earlier Soviet-built version, which had deteriorated.

Zelenskyy told reporters at the Munich Security Conference that the drone flew at a height of 85 metres, which prevented it from being spotted by Ukraine's radars.

The New Safe Confinement is 108 metres high and 162 metres high long, spans 257 metres and has a lifetime of at least 100 years, according to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.