Ukraine is commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on Sunday, but this year’s remembrance carries a sharper, more urgent tone. With Russia’s full‑scale war now in its fourth year, Kyiv warns that the threat of a new nuclear catastrophe is no longer theoretical it is unfolding in real time.
Ukrainian officials say Moscow has repeatedly flown missiles and drones dangerously close to the Chernobyl exclusion zone while targeting cities across the country. One Russian strike last year even damaged a critical protective shield built to contain radioactive debris from the 1986 meltdown, underscoring how fragile the site remains.
For Ukraine, marking the anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster has taken on renewed meaning. “The Chernobyl disaster was the result of a reactor experiment ordered by Moscow, in violation of safety protocols, followed by lies and cover‑ups,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said this week. “To this day, the world faces consequences brought by a totalitarian system that subordinated truth and science to ideology and political power.”
The explosion inside reactor four on April 26, 1986, exposed millions to radiation, forced hundreds of thousands to flee and contaminated vast stretches of land. Thousands have since died from radiation‑related illnesses, though the true toll remains fiercely debated. A massive steel and concrete arch installed in 2016 now covers the original sarcophagus, but even that structure is vulnerable. A Russian drone strike in February 2025 punctured its hermetic seal, requiring an estimated €500 million in repairs to prevent long‑term damage.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general told Reuters that radars have detected at least 92 Russian drones flying within five kilometres of the protective shield since June 2024 a pattern Kyiv sees as reckless and deeply alarming.
Inside the exclusion zone, the atmosphere is eerily still. Reuters journalists visiting the site this week described a haunting quiet across the 2,600‑square‑kilometre area north of Kyiv. National Guardsmen patrol the grounds, while roughly 2,250 workers rotate through long shifts to oversee the plant’s slow decommissioning. Reactor four’s control room remains a dark, rusted relic of Soviet engineering, frozen in time.
Outside, nature has reclaimed the abandoned city of Prypiat. Moose and wild horses roam freely through forests and empty streets a reminder of how quickly the natural world moves in when humans are forced to leave.
As Ukraine reflects on the disaster that reshaped its history, the fear is clear: the past is not just a memory. In a country still under attack, the threat of another nuclear emergency feels closer than ever.
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