Ukrainian firefighters have gained full control over the situation at the Chornobyl site following last month’s drone strike that caused extensive damage to the large confinement structure covering the reactor destroyed in the 1986 incident, director general Rafael Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on 13 March in his Update 280 on the nuclear safety situation in Ukraine.

The drone attack in the early hours of 14 February blew a large hole in the roof of the New Safe Confinement building and set off fires within its structure that continued to smoulder for more than two weeks.

Ukrainian emergency personnel managed gradually to extinguish the smouldering, with no new fires detected for around ten days. On 7 March the site was able to downgrade the event from an ‘emergency’ to a ‘controlled situation’.

From the time of the drone strike, the IAEA team based at the site has had unrestricted access to observe and assess the status of the NSC. This structure has multiple functions: to protect the environment from any potential release of radioactive material into the atmosphere, to prevent any degradation of the original shelter structure beneath it from external factors, and to facilitate dismantling activities.  

As a result of the drone strike, however, the confinement function of the NSC has been compromised. The fires and smouldering resulted in extensive damage, including to the northern side and to a lesser extent to the southern side of its roof, according to an initial site evaluation shared with the IAEA team based at the site. The NSC will require extensive repair efforts.

The Chornobyl site has continued to perform additional radiation monitoring over the past several weeks, reporting the results to the IAEA team, which has also carried out its own independent monitoring. To date, all radiation monitoring results have shown that there has not been any increase in radiation at the site.

Director General Grossi commented: “… I remain extremely concerned about the drone strike that took place a month ago. It posed a serious threat to nuclear safety and badly damaged the site’s New Safe Confinement, which was built at a huge expense for the international community. The challenging task ahead is to repair the structure and restore its confinement functionality. Attacking nuclear facilities is completely unacceptable.”

Further underlining constant nuclear safety risks during the conflict, the IAEA staff at the Chornobyl site have continued to report multiple air raid alarms in the recent weeks, and the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU) informed the IAEA that the Chornobyl site recorded drone flights in the area during the night of 8 March.

The precarious nuclear safety and security situation was also evident at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (ZNPP), with the IAEA team there hearing explosions on most days at different distances from the site.

• Talks between presidents Trump and Putin starting on 18 March were expected to include the potential dividing up of Ukraine’s power assets, reports The New York Times.