Strikes kill 16 on Chernobyl anniversary

Strikes across Ukraine, Russian-occupied territory and Russia killed at least 16 people on Sunday as Ukraine marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. (apnews.com) In Dnipro, Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least nine people, according to regional official Oleksandr Hanzha. In Sevastopol, a Ukrainian drone strike killed one man, Moscow-installed authorities said. (pbs.org) Authorities in Russia’s Belgorod region said a woman was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack. Leonid Pasechnik, the Russia-installed head of occupied Luhansk, said three people were killed in an overnight strike on a village after two others died there earlier Saturday. (pbs.org) Ukraine’s military said it also hit an oil refinery in Yaroslavl, deep inside Russia. The General Staff said fires broke out at the plant, which processes 15 million tons of oil a year and makes gasoline, diesel and jet fuel used by the Russian military. (pbs.org) The date carried extra weight because April 26 marked four decades since the reactor explosion at Chernobyl, the world’s worst nuclear disaster. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian attacks were again putting the world “on the brink of a man-made disaster.” (pbs.org) The nuclear risk is not abstract in Ukraine’s war. The International Atomic Energy Agency says military activity, shelling, air attacks and repeated power losses have threatened nuclear safety since Russia’s full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022. (iaea.org) The agency has repeatedly warned that off-site power is essential for nuclear plants because reactors and spent fuel pools still need electricity for cooling and safety systems. At Zaporizhzhya, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, the IAEA said in January that repairs restored its last remaining backup power line after a temporary local ceasefire. (iaea.org) Chornobyl has also stayed in the war’s path long after the 1986 explosion. The IAEA said in November it deployed extra staff to assess the New Safe Confinement, the giant steel shelter over the destroyed reactor, after it was damaged in a drone strike earlier in 2025. (iaea.org) Those overlapping dangers — civilian deaths, long-range drone strikes and pressure on nuclear infrastructure — are why the anniversary landed as more than a memorial date. Four decades after Chernobyl, Ukraine spent the day counting fresh dead and warning that the line between war damage and nuclear danger is still thin. (apnews.com) (iaea.org)