The Russian drone, equipped with a high explosive warhead, hit the Chernobyl nuclear power plant’s protective containment shell during the night. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed this Friday. However, a senior Russian official denied blame for the strike.
Zelenskyy, a UN agency, and other experts have confirmed that radiation levels in the plant are not higher. The International Atomic Energy Agency stated that the strike did no damage to the inner containment shell of the plant.
The IAEA refused to assign blame, stating that only its team at the site had heard the explosion and was informed by the drone’s pilot that it had hit the shell.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, denied that Ukraine was to blame. Peskov told reporters in a press conference that there was no mention of strikes on nuclear energy or infrastructure.
The strike was not a secret.
The strike occurred two days after Donald Trump announced he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war. This move seemed to establish Putin as the sole player who matters and set Zelenskyy and European governments aside in any peace negotiations.