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Russia has been accused of repeatedly targeting the site since Vladimir Putin ordered the unlawful invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
10:43, Tue, Apr 14, 2026 Updated: 11:16, Tue, Apr 14, 2026
A collapse of the internal radiation shell at the plant could increase risk of radioactive release (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Russia has been accused of "conducting effectively a nuclear war against the people of Ukraine and Europe", amid fears of a collapse of the internal radiation shell at the Chernobyl site. Ukraine has accused Russia of repeatedly targeting the site since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion four years ago.
The protective dome covering the nuclear reactor that exploded in Ukraine’s Chornobyl in 1986 was damaged in a Russian strike last February. Repair works worth €500 million were underway to restore the New Safe Confinement (NSC), but the site has been severely affected by the ongoing war, with “missiles from the Russians still being fired across Chernobyl,” Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist for Greenpeace Ukraine, said earlier this month. "Here we are 40 years on and Russia is still conducting effectively a nuclear war against the people of Ukraine and Europe", he added.
Ukraine has accused Russia of repeatedly targeting the site (Image: Getty)
In a recent report Greenpeace warned that despite some repair works, the confinement function of the NSC "could not be fully restored."
Calling this "catastrophic" Burnie said "there's four tons of dust, highly radioactive dust, fuel pellets, enormous amounts of radioactivity inside the sarcophagus".
As the NSC cannot be repaired, it can no longer function as designed, raising the possibility of radioactive releases, Burnie added.
Plant director Sergiy Tarakanov described the situation around the site as “very dangerous.”
Tarakanov said: "If a rocket will drop, not directly into the safe confinement, but just in 200 meters, it will create an external impact like an earthquake," increasing the risk of the inner shell collapsing.
"And what actually 1986 accident showed to us ... that the radioactive particles, they do not recognize borders."
'Missiles from the Russians still being fired across Chernobyl,' said Shaun Burnie (Image: Getty)
Since the beginning of the unlawful Russian invasion of Ukraine, the International Atomic Energy Agency has pleaded with the Ukrainian and Russian military to keep the fighting away from nuclear plants.
Russia’s army captured the plant on the first day of its 2022 full-scale invasion Ukraine, before withdrawing a few weeks later.
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Russian troops have been occupying the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe and one of the 10 largest in the world, since early March 2022, and several skirmishes have happened in the area since.
In 1986, when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, a reactor at Chornobyl exploded during a failed safety test, releasing radioactive clouds over much of Europe and leading to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
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