Zelensky condemns Chornobyl drone strike before London talks

A Russian drone strike damaged a spent nuclear fuel facility near the Chornobyl nuclear plant on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accuse Moscow of carrying out a deliberate attack on critical nuclear infrastructure hours before talks with European leaders in London.

Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear operator, Energoatom, said the strike “partially destroyed” a spent nuclear fuel storage building near the plant in northern Ukraine. Officials said a fire was extinguished, no injuries were reported and radiation levels remained stable.

Zelenskyy called the attack “extremely vile” and said Russia had used a Shahed attack drone. “Russia deliberately struck this particular nuclear infrastructure facility,” he wrote on X, describing the building as “an extremely critical infrastructure facility.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it had been briefed by Ukraine and that the strike significantly damaged a fuel-reception building metres from where “large amounts of nuclear material” are stored, Al Jazeera reported. The agency said a team would soon visit the site “to inspect the impact.” Energoatom said no spent fuel had been stored in the building at the time of the attack.

Russia has not publicly commented on the alleged strike, which Al Jazeera reported occurred at a facility about 15km, or 9 miles, from the Chornobyl plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. In February 2025, Russia allegedly used a Shahed drone to damage the containment arch over the Chornobyl reactor destroyed in the April 1986 explosion and meltdown, Al Jazeera reported.

The Chornobyl strike came amid a wider wave of Russian attacks across Ukraine. Zelenskyy said Russia had launched overnight strikes in 13 regions and, over the past week, fired 88 missiles, more than 3,250 drones and 1,800 guided bombs.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia targeted the country with 236 drones overnight, of which 215 were intercepted, according to Al Jazeera.

Casualties were also reported elsewhere. The BBC, citing authorities, reported that at least three people were killed in a Russian strike in a village outside Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, a region that has faced repeated Russian attacks in recent days. At least two people were killed there on Saturday, the BBC reported.

Al Jazeera reported that Russian drone strikes on Sunday killed at least two people: a 56-year-old minibus driver in the southern Zaporizhia region and a 59-year-old man in the central Dnipropetrovsk region. Regional military chief Oleksandr Ganzha said a 35-year-old man was wounded and infrastructure was damaged after drones and aerial bombs hit two districts.

Later Sunday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was due to host Zelenskyy at Downing Street with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for talks on European support for Ukraine. The three countries, known as the E3 group, are among Kyiv’s strongest allies. The UK and France also lead a “coalition of the willing” initiative aimed at providing security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a potential future peace process.

The meeting follows stalled diplomatic efforts. Zelenskyy sent an open letter calling for direct negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, writing that it would be “wrong to simply wait” for the conflict to become the focus of U.S. attention again. Putin rejected the proposal on Friday, saying he saw no point in meeting Zelenskyy for now and repeating his position that a truce would allow Ukraine to regroup. He said he would end the war only when Russia’s goals had been met.

Ukraine has also continued strikes inside Russia. On Saturday, Kyiv targeted St Petersburg and the surrounding area during the final day of a major economic forum, in what Russian authorities described as an “unprecedented” drone attack, the BBC reported. Days earlier, Ukraine had attacked the outskirts of the same city, about 1,000km, or 620 miles, from Ukraine, sending a large plume of black smoke over the skyline as Putin’s flagship forum began.