Overview
- Ukraine marked the 40th anniversary on Sunday as President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian drone activity around the site “nuclear terrorism.”
- The New Safe Confinement, a steel arch over reactor 4, was struck by a Russian drone in February 2025 and lost its primary containment function, the IAEA reported.
- Kyiv is seeking international donors to restore the cover through an EBRD-backed effort, with repairs expected to take three to four years.
- Russia’s 2022 seizure of the Chernobyl zone and continued missile and drone overflights of nuclear sites have kept safety risks high.
- The 1986 disaster began with a failed safety test and RBMK design flaws, spread radioactive fallout across Europe, displaced entire towns, and left an exclusion zone that the IAEA says will be unsafe for human settlement for about 24,000 years.