President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of initiating a “global threat” after it shelled an energy facility in the town of Slavutych, causing a blackout at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant on Oct. 1.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said that a blackout had been caused by voltage surges at the New Safe Confinement after the strike.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
The New Safe Confinement is a key facility that isolates the destroyed Reactor 4, ensuring that radioactive materials are not leaked into the surrounding environment.
“Due to the Russian shelling of the energy infrastructure in the Kyiv region in the city of Slavutych, an emergency situation arose at the facilities of the Chornobyl NPP State Enterprise,” it wrote in a statement.
Chornobyl is the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, with a record financial cost of about $700B, dozens of operators and rescuers killed, and thousands of mysterious cancer cases resulting in the aftermath.
On April 26, 1986, Reactor 4 exploded after a scheduled test there was carried out improperly by plant operators, leading to the evacuation of the city. More than two dozen emergency personnel died within three months of the initial radiation exposure. As of 2005, 6000 childhood thyroid cancer patients had presented within the affected populations, 15 of them fatal.
Writing about this week’s incident on X, Zelensky said: “Today, a Russian strike on one of our energy substations in Slavutych caused a blackout lasting more than three hours at the former Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant facilities.”
Other Topics of Interest
Large-scale prisoner exchanges were the only concrete outcome of three rounds of peace talks in Istanbul between May and July, the first formal talks in over three years.
“The Russians could not have been unaware that striking facilities in Slavutych would have such consequences for Chornobyl,” the President’s statement continued.
“And this was a deliberate strike, involving more than 20 drones – preliminary estimates indicate Russian-Iranian ‘shaheds.’ Some of these drones were shot down, but the attack was specifically executed as a wave to complicate the facility’s defense.”
Zelensky also referenced the situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which has been off the grid for more than a week after shelling as Kyiv and Moscow traded blame.
Zaporizhzhia has been a major concern for the West, as well, throughout the now 43-month full-scale invasion of Ukraine. US President Trump stressed that negotiations with Russia on a ceasefire must include the de-occupation, or at least demilitarization of Zaporizhzhia NPP, which has six reactors built in the 1980s and 1990s.
Government officials and energy watchdogs have said that the situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant is now critical, with the facility running off emergency diesel generators.
Zelensky said in an urgent statement on Sept. 30 that the outage was “a threat to absolutely everyone,” while the Russian-installed communications director for the plant, Yevgenia Yashina, described the situation as “under complete control” to Russian state media on Oct. 1.
“Russia is intentionally creating a risk of radiological incidents, taking advantage, unfortunately, of the weak stance of the IAEA and Director General Rafael Grossi, as well as the dispersed global attention,” Zelensky wrote in his statement on Wednesday.
Zelensky’s criticism of Grossi came after the International Atomic Energy Agency chief met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow on Sept. 25 to discuss “nuclear energy, non-proliferation and nuclear safety and security challenges,” according to a statement shared on X.
Timely and important exchange with Russia’s President Putin on nuclear energy, non-proliferation, and nuclear safety and security challenges.
Grateful for the support to the impartial and professional work of the @IAEAorg. pic.twitter.com/n92Yu9ojvi
— Rafael Mariano Grossi (@rafaelmgrossi) September 25, 2025