Ukraine Marks Chornobyl 40th Anniversary; Zaporizhzhia Plant Loses Power

Ukraine commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster on Sunday, April 26, 2026, as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the southeast suffered its 15th temporary blackout since March 2022. Kyiv's state atomic agency reported the blackout at Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces have occupied the facility since Kremlin troops took over in March 2022.

Somber ceremonies unfolded in Kyiv and at the Chornobyl plant itself, drawing foreign officials including the EU energy commissioner who arrived in Kyiv to mark the occasion and pledge fresh support for Ukraine's power system.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy laid a candle at the Chornobyl plant alongside the visiting Moldovan president and other officials during the anniversary events. ' The commemorations occurred amid Russia's war against Ukraine, which has lasted four years as of April 26, 2026.

A Russian drone strike in February 2025 punctured a massive arc installed over part of the Chornobyl plant in 2016, which shields a sarcophagus built in 1986 to cover tons of radioactive debris.

No leaks were detected after the strike, and workers have patched up the hole. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which is helping raise funds for the project, stated that the arc needs at least 500 million euros' worth of more extensive repairs to prevent permanent damage.

International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi, speaking in Kyiv on Sunday, April 26, 2026, said repairs to the Chornobyl arc should start as soon as possible.

Kyiv states that Moscow has repeatedly sent missiles and drones on a flight path near the Chornobyl plant to attack Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian radars detected at least 92 Russian drones that had flown within a five-kilometre radius of the Chornobyl shield since June 2024, according to Kyiv's top state prosecutor.

The Chornobyl plant was briefly occupied in the first weeks of the war, and a Russian attack last year damaged a critical protective shield at the facility.

Russian forces occupy Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the southeast. Nuclear power accounts for around 70 per cent of Ukraine's total power generation since Russia's full-scale invasion, according to state-owned firm Energoatom. An accidental explosion and resulting meltdown occurred inside reactor four at the Soviet-built Chornobyl plant in the early hours of April 26, 1986.

The disaster spewed radioactive material across much of Europe, leading to thousands of deaths and devastating environmental consequences. Soviet authorities sought to hide the true scale of the Chornobyl disaster in 1986. Millions were exposed to radiation after the 1986 Chornobyl disaster, hundreds of thousands were forced to flee, and thousands have succumbed to radiation-related illnesses such as cancer.

Serhii Balashov, who worked on the clean-up of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster, spoke on the sidelines of the memorial ceremony in Kyiv on Sunday, April 26, 2026. Balashov said, 'They didn't even acknowledge the link between our illnesses and being in Chornobyl for the clean-up,' referring to how Soviet authorities sought to cover up the consequences of the 1986 Chornobyl accident even among clean-up workers.

The Chornobyl plant is located some 100 kilometres north of Kyiv and is circled by a 2,600-sq-km exclusion zone.

Reuters visited the Chornobyl plant on Wednesday, April 22, 2026, where National Guardsmen patrol the facility. Around 2,250 employees work in days-long shifts at the Chornobyl facility overseeing its gradual decommissioning, and the plant's last reactor was shut down in 2000. The control room for reactor four at Chornobyl is now a darkened space of mangled and rusted Soviet-era equipment.

Moose and wild horses roam the area around the Chornobyl plant and the nearby abandoned city of Prypiat.