At least 16 dead in strikes as Chernobyl anniversary highlights nuclear risks of Russia-Ukraine war
The death toll in Russia’s drone and missile attacks on the city of Dnipro has risen to nine, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said on Sunday.
One person was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on the port city of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, officials in Moscow said Sunday. Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014; this was a move that most of the world considered illegal, and had used it as a staging and supply point during the war.
Leonid Pasechnik, the Russian-appointed governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk region (Russia said it had taken full control of the region earlier this month, but Ukraine denied the claim), said three people were killed in an overnight Ukrainian drone strike on a village, after reports of two people killed early Saturday.
Ukraine has not commented on either attack, which could not be independently verified by The Associated Press.
According to local officials, the latest attacks came after a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Belgorod border region.
Ukrainian forces also hit an oil refinery in Yaroslavl, deep within Russian territory, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Sunday. The strikes sparked a fire at the facility, which processes 15 million tons of oil a year and produces gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for the Russian military. Russia did not immediately comment. Ukraine has developed its own long-range drones that can reach targets within about 1,500 kilometers of Russia. Moscow has recently used them against Russian oil facilities as it plans to increase its exports after the Trump administration granted temporary relief from sanctions to ease supply constraints.
Kiev officials complain that Russia will use the additional revenue from the new weapons to hit Ukraine harder.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy marked the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and warned that Russian attacks risk repeating history.
“Through its war, Russia is once again bringing the world to the brink of man-made disaster; Russian-Iranian Shahads regularly fly over the facility and one of them was imprisoned last year,” he wrote on Facebook.
“The world must not allow this nuclear terrorism to continue, and the best way is to force Russia to stop its reckless attacks,” he said.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, echoed these concerns during a visit to Kiev, saying repair of the facility’s damaged outer protective shell should begin immediately. IAEA assessments showed that damage following an attack last year had already compromised the structure’s basic security function, warning that years of inactivity could increase the danger to the original sarcophagus underneath.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said repairs would require at least 500 million euros ($586 million).
Ukrainian officials said a Russian drone crashed into the outer shell of the facility’s New Safe Confinement structure — a $2.1 billion arch-like containment completed in 2019 over the remains of Reactor No. 4 — in February 2025. Moscow denied targeting the facility, claiming that Kiev carried out the attack.
