The protective structure of the damaged Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukraine, it doesn’t work as it should after the Russian drone attack suffered in February 2025. No new damage was noted, but the protection is not working well. The alarm was sounded by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
A recent inspection by IAEA experts found permanent damage to the structure and monitoring systems, they said in a statement Friday. However, they found that it had “lost its main security functions, including its containment capacity”. In what the state is today the most famous nuclear power plant in the worldthat of the April 1986 accident, one of the greatest environmental disasters in history?
Chernobyl, in the middle of war
Russia occupied Chernobyl for 35 days in 2022, at the start of the invasion. His troops entered on February 24 and left on March 31. “Russian soldiers looted laboratories, captured guards and mistreated staff, and also used the factory to launch new military operations,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later said.
During these almost four years of war, the fighting and attacks around the four Ukrainian nuclear power plants have been frequent. The power plants suffered numerous power outages which endangered the reactor cooling systems.
Chernobyl was attacked again in February 2025. Russian explosive drones caused damage to exterior structures of the so-called new safe containment (NSC) although they did not cause radiation leaks. The structural work of the nuclear power plant was inaugurated in November 2016, thirty years after the tragedy.
This New Safe Sarcophagus is a protective cover erected around reactor no. 4 of the power plant. The construction surrounds the concrete sarcophagus which buried this reactor. It is intended to limit the release into the atmosphere of the radioactivity remaining in the reactor. The shell provides an area for scientists and engineers to work to contain radiation from the site.
A 30,000 ton shell
It is a mobile structure, the largest built to date in the world, in the shape of a arch 110 meters high, 150 meters wide and 256 meters long. It weighs 30,000 tonnes. It was built 180 meters from the reactor and then, using a sophisticated rail system, it was mounted on top of it. The execution of the final phase of the project only happened in May 2018.
Built by the French company Novarka, the bridge is equipped with remote-controlled cranes with the aim of dismantling the ancient sarcophagus. The total cost of the protection system execution plan was estimated at 2.150 million euros. Of this amount, 1.5 billion was intended for the new sarcophagus. All this was financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with the collaboration of 28 countries which contributed 1,417 million euros.
The new structure was created to dismantle the sarcophagus and extract the radioactive materials, but the engineers’ plans were interrupted by the Russian invasion. In theory, the old Chernobyl structure should have been destroyed in 2023. It was planned that the armor lasted over a hundred yearsbut the war and the Russian attacks have weakened it, we do not yet know to what extent.
Continue cooling nuclear fuel
Chernobyl is powered by the Ukrainian electricity grid via eight lines. Additionally, it has two diesel generators. These are responsible for continuing to cool the pools where the nuclear fuel is immersed. Technicians must do this because many of the the radioactive elements in this spent fuel continue to disintegrate todaythat is, emitting energy.
The plant’s four nuclear reactors have been inactive and empty of fuel for 22 years. The last of them was operational until 2000. April 2026 will mark the 40th anniversary of the disaster of Chernobyl. By then, Ukraine and Russia may have signed some kind of peace.
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