Ukraine marks 40th anniversary of Chernobyl disaster

Ukraine commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster on Sunday, amid fears that Russia's four-year war could spark a repeat of the world's worst nuclear accident that led to thousands of deaths and devastating environmental consequences.

Marking the disaster - which spewed radioactive material across much of Europe as Soviet authorities sought to hide its true scale - has taken on sharp new meaning during Russia's invasion of its smaller neighbour.

Kyiv says Moscow has repeatedly sent missiles and drones on a flight path near the plant to attack Ukrainian cities, even damaging a critical protective shield in an attack last year.

Russian forces also occupy Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the southeast, which Kyiv's state atomic agency said on Sunday suffered its 15th temporary blackout since Kremlin troops took over in March 2022.

On Sunday, foreign officials including the EU energy commissioner arrived in Kyiv to commemorate the anniversary and pledge fresh support for Ukraine's power system, which is regularly targeted by Russian air strikes.

Sombre ceremonies took place in Kyiv and at the Chernobyl plant itself - which was briefly occupied in the first weeks of war - where President Volodymyr Zelenskyy laid a candle alongside the visiting Moldovan president and other officials.

"Right now, the risks are no less great because of what Russia is doing with our Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, and in general with our energy and our land," Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv.

WAR DAMAGE

A Russian drone strike in February 2025 punctured a massive arc installed over part of the Chernobyl plant in 2016 to shield a sarcophagus built in 1986 to cover tons of radioactive debris. No leaks were detected, and workers have patched up the hole.

But the arc needs at least 500 million euros' worth of more extensive repairs to prevent permanent damage, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which is helping raise funds for the project.

Speaking in Kyiv on Sunday, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said repairs should start as soon as possible.

Kyiv's top state prosecutor told Reuters that Ukrainian radars had detected at least 92 Russian drones that had flown within a 5-km radius of the shield since June 2024.

Nuclear power ​has become the backbone of Ukraine's energy system since Russia's full-scale invasion, accounting for around 70 per cent ⁠of total power generation, according to state-owned firm Energoatom.

Control of the Zaporizhzhia facility, Europe's largest, is one of the most contentious points in US-brokered peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow that have produced few results.

LONG-LASTING CONSEQUENCES

Millions were exposed to radiation, hundreds of thousands forced to flee, and wide swathes of land contaminated after the accidental explosion and resulting meltdown inside reactor four at the Soviet-built Chornobyl plant in the early hours of April 26, 1986.

Thousands have since succumbed to radiation-related illnesses such as cancer, although the total death toll and long-term health effects remain a subject of intense debate.

Pope Leo on Sunday said the Chernobyl disaster had left a mark on humankind's collective conscience, and he urged that atomic power "always be used to support life and peace".

Serhii Balashov, one of those who worked on the clean-up, told Reuters that Soviet authorities sought to cover up the consequences of the accident even among those who had played a critical role in containing it.

"They didn't even acknowledge the link between our illnesses and being in Chernobyl for the clean-up," he said on the sidelines of the memorial ceremony in Kyiv.

Some 100 kms north of Kyiv and circled by a 2,600-sq-km exclusion zone, the plant - which Reuters visited on Wednesday - is now shrouded in an eerie calm.

National Guardsmen patrol the facility, where around 2,250 employees work in days-long shifts overseeing its gradual decommissioning. The plant's last reactor was shut down in 2000.

The control room for reactor four is now a darkened space of mangled and rusted Soviet-era equipment.

Moose and wild horses roam the area around the plant and the nearby abandoned city of Pripyat, in a sign of how nature has taken over in the absence of humans.