In the quiet dead of night, two catastrophic events have shaken the Chernobyl nuclear site, separated by nearly four decades and forever linked to Ukraine’s history of crisis. The first, at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, 1986, tore through Reactor No. 4 during a routine safety test, sending a deadly plume of radiation across Europe, unraveling public trust in the Soviet Union, and leaving a permanent scar on the region that many historians link to the bloc’s eventual collapse. The second, recorded at 1:59 a.m. on February 14, 2025, is a new wound inflicted by war: Ukrainian officials attribute the blast to an explosive-laden Russian drone that hit the iconic New Safe Confinement (NSC), the massive protective structure that caps the site of the 1986 disaster. While far less catastrophic than the original explosion, the strike has sparked urgent global anxiety over nuclear safety in an era of full-scale invasion, turning a site already synonymous with suffering into another frontline of Russia’s campaign.
For the thousands of workers who tend to the decommissioned plant inside Chernobyl’s 2,600-square-kilometer exclusion zone — the uninhabited swath of land carved out after the 1986 disaster — the attack brought back traumatic memories many thought they had laid to rest. Klavdiia Omelchenko, now 59, was a 19-year-old textile worker living in Pripyat, the ghost plant town built for Chernobyl employees, when the 1986 explosion occurred. She slept through the blast, waking only to scattered rumors, and did not grasp the full scale of the disaster until weeks later, when she was evacuated with nothing more than a small bag of documents and cosmetics. Her home became part of the exclusion zone, and never having been able to build a new life elsewhere, she returned in 1993 to work in the plant’s cafeteria.
Decades of living with low-level radiation have become routine for Omelchenko, but the risks of war have proven far more terrifying. “It wasn’t as scary as now. Back then, at least, there was no bombing,” she explained. Though she developed persistent headaches after the 1986 accident and later underwent surgery for a precancerous condition, she shrugs off the daily contamination risk that comes with living and working inside the zone. “We grew up in it,” she said. “We don’t pay attention to it anymore.”
Completed in 2019 at a cost of $2.1 billion, the NSC is a massive arch-shaped engineering marvel large enough to enclose the entire Statue of Liberty. It was built to replace the crumbling, hastily constructed concrete sarcophagus the Soviet Union erected immediately after the 1986 disaster, designed to contain the 200 tons of highly radioactive fuel and debris left inside Reactor No. 4 for a projected 100 years, while enabling the safe dismantling of the old sarcophagus. The Chernobyl plant ceased all electricity production in 2000, when its final operational reactor was shut down, and the NSC was supposed to be the cornerstone of a decades-long global effort to finally neutralize the site’s ongoing threat.
That progress has been completely upended by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022. Liudmyla Kozak, an engineer with more than 20 years of experience working at the plant, was on duty when Russian troops seized the Chernobyl site in the opening weeks of the invasion. For nearly three weeks, staff kept critical operations running while under armed guard, receiving radiation doses far exceeding safe limits for their rotations. “We had no hope we would make it out alive — it was really that scary,” Kozak recalled. Workers slept on office floors and desks, while Russian soldiers occupied key infrastructure, damaged and stole critical equipment, and stirred up radioactive dust by driving heavy military vehicles through contaminated areas and digging defensive trenches. Now, with the added damage from the drone strike, completing the decades-long cleanup has become even more challenging.
Serhii Bokov, who manages day-to-day operations for the NSC, was on duty early the morning of the 2025 strike when he felt the dull thud of the explosion ripple through the arch. He and his colleagues rushed outside, smelled smoke, but could not immediately locate the source. After a nearby military checkpoint confirmed the strike, firefighters arrived roughly 40 minutes later, and crews eventually found the fire smoldering through the structure’s outer membrane. Flames repeatedly re-ignited, and it took more than two weeks to fully extinguish the blaze.
“There was no feeling of fear, none at all. It was just a fire — something we practice in drills — only this time it was real,” Bokov said. “I didn’t think, honestly, that we could lose the entire arch.”
The strike did not fully penetrate the NSC’s outer layer, and the damage was confined to a section of the arch with low contamination. Radiation monitors recorded no spike in radiation levels beyond the structure, and no workers were injured in the attack. The breach has been temporarily patched, with the visible damage sealed from the outside, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned that the damage could cut significantly into the arch’s projected 100-year lifespan, compromising its core safety function.
Before the strike, crews were preparing to begin dismantling the old Soviet sarcophagus, a milestone decades in the making. That work is now on indefinite hold, and Bokov estimates the project will be delayed by at least 10 years. While the NSC can continue to operate in its damaged state for a limited period, the long-term stability of the crumbling sarcophagus beneath it remains a critical concern. “Everything depends on how quickly we can restore this and return to normal operations — and to preparing for dismantling,” Bokov noted.
Oleh Solonenko, head of a radiation safety shift at the plant, emphasized that the strike has shattered long-held assumptions about nuclear safety during armed conflict. “What once seemed unthinkable — strikes on nuclear facilities and other hazardous sites — has now become reality,” he said.
Moscow has denied intentionally targeting the Chernobyl plant, claiming the attack was staged by Ukrainian authorities. But environmental group Greenpeace Ukraine has echoed the IAEA’s warning, noting that without urgent repairs, the risk of the old sarcophagus collapsing increases dramatically. “It is difficult to comprehend the scale of the deadly, hazardous conditions inside the sarcophagus,” said Eric Schmieman, an engineer who spent years working at Chernobyl and assisted in designing the NSC. “There are tons of highly radioactive nuclear fuel, dust and debris. Now it is critical to find a way to restore the key functions of this facility.”
Today, yellow daffodils bloom beside wartime fortifications inside the exclusion zone, and workers in plain clothes, carrying radiation badges and special access permits, still pass through restricted checkpoints to keep the site stable. For the people who have dedicated their lives to containing Chernobyl’s legacy of disaster, the strike is a reminder that the site’s danger is not just a historical memory — it is an ongoing risk amplified by a war that has already upended decades of progress on nuclear safety.
