Editor’s note: This article was updated with additional comments by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A Russian attack on an energy facility in the town of Slavutych in Kyiv Oblast caused a blackout at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant on Oct. 1, the Energy Ministry said.
Slavutych, a satellite town of the Chornobyl plant in northern Ukraine, was built to house evacuated plant personnel following the 1986 disaster.
Earlier on Oct. 1, a Russian drone attack on a substation in Slavutych caused power outages in the city and parts of the neighboring Chernihiv Oblast, according to local authorities.
The Energy Ministry also reported an “emergency situation” at several facilities within the Chornobyl plant.
“Due to power surges, the New Safe Confinement — the key structure that isolates the destroyed 4th reactor of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and prevents the release of radioactive materials into the environment — was left without electricity,” the statement read.
The blackout at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant lasted over three hours following Russian strikes, President Volodymyr Zelensky later said.
“The Russians could not have been unaware that a strike on the facilities in Slavutych would have such consequences for Chornobyl. And it was a deliberate strike, in which they used more than 20 drones — according to preliminary estimates,” he said.
In February, a Russian Shahed-type drone struck the New Safe Confinement over Chornobyl’s destroyed 4th reactor. The structure built to contain radioactive material was damaged, although no serious radiation leaks were caused.
The news comes as the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power station in Europe, which has been under Russian occupation since March 2022, has been disconnected from the Ukrainian electricity grid for a record of over 100 hours.
Zelensky described the situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant as “critical” on Sept. 30. Diesel generators are now supplying power to the plant, but one has already failed, he said.
