A worker has been killed in a reported Ukrainian drone strike at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, according to Russian-installed officials overseeing the site.
Authorities at the plant said the victim was a driver working in a transport section of the facility when the drone hit on Monday. The claim has not been independently verified, and there was no immediate response from Kyiv.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, the largest nuclear facility in Europe, has remained a major flashpoint since Russian forces took control of it in 2022.
Both Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly accused each other of actions that could trigger a nuclear disaster, raising concerns far beyond the battlefield.
Although the plant is currently in a cold shutdown state, it sits dangerously close to the front lines in southern Ukraine. Its status continues to complicate already fragile efforts to negotiate an end to the war.
Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, Energoatom, said just a day earlier that one of the plant’s power lines had been knocked out, forcing it into a temporary blackout for about 90 minutes.
According to the company, it was the 15th such outage since the facility fell under Russian control.
Energoatom warned that repeated disruptions like this significantly increase the risk of a radiation incident, not just for Ukraine but for the wider region.
The latest developments come as Ukraine marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. President Volodymyr Zelensky used the moment to accuse Russia of engaging in what he described as “nuclear terrorism,” alleging drone activity around sensitive sites.
With the war dragging on and tensions around nuclear infrastructure persisting, fears of a wider environmental and humanitarian crisis remain very real.
