The protective shield built around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site in Ukraine can no longer do its job of containing radioactive waste as a result of a drone strike earlier this year, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The New Safe Containment (NSC) at Chernobyl, which was “severely damaged” by the drone strike in February, “has lost its primary safety functions, including shutdown capability,” the IAEA said in a statement Friday.
Ukraine has accused Russia of carrying out the February 14 strike at Chernobyl, which the Kremlin has denied.
The strike hit the NSC, sparking a fire and damaging the protective covering around it, the IAEA said.
The nuclear watchdog has recommended a major renovation of the huge steel structure, which was put in place several years ago to allow clean-up operations and ensure the safety of the site almost four decades after the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.
“Limited temporary repairs have been carried out on the roof, but a timely and comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.
Grossi added that there was no permanent damage to the NSC’s load structures or monitoring systems.
The IAEA, which has a permanent presence at the site, will “continue to do everything it can to support efforts to fully restore nuclear safety and security,” Grossi said.
It is not the first time that Chernobyl has been in the spotlight during Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine. Russian forces seized the nuclear plant and its surrounding area in the early days of the full-scale invasion of Moscow, overrunning the plant in February 2022 and holding staff hostage. They left the plant and returned control to Ukrainian personnel just over a month later.
Fragments of a drone that struck the New Safe Containment in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone after the attack on February 14, 2025. – Artem Derkachov/Frontliner/Getty Images
The NSC is a massive arch-shaped steel structure built at the Chernobyl site to cover the damaged reactor No. 4 and contain its radioactive material.
As the largest movable land structure in the world, the colossal hangar is a monumental feat of engineering. Built in 2010 and completed in 2019, it was designed to last 100 years and played a crucial role in securing the site.
The project cost €2.1 billion and was financed by contributions from more than 45 donor countries and organizations through the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which in 2019 praised the undertaking as “the largest international collaboration ever made in the field of nuclear safety”.
On April 26, 1986 an explosion ripped apart reactor No. 4 at Chernobyl, in what was then the Soviet Union, spreading radioactivity across swathes of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and beyond.
More than 30 people have been killed in the nearby city of Pripyat, Ukraine, with many others suffering symptoms resulting from radiation exposure since then, according to the IAEA and the World Health Organization. Birth defects and cancer rates among residents in the radiation-exposed area remain high.
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