Rumina Velshi, Head of the Supervisory Board of JSC National Nuclear Energy Generating Company (NNEGC) Energoatom, has called Russia's strike on the Centralized Spent Fuel Storage Facility (CSFSF) in the Chornobyl exclusion zone reckless, noting that it is an attack on the global system of nuclear and radiation safety safeguards.
"I will be precise about what this was. It was a strike by the Russian Federation on a peaceful, civilian nuclear facility, and a reckless one – reckless toward the people on site, toward the Ukrainians who live nearby, and toward everyone, in every country, who would bear the consequences of a release," Velshi said in a statement published on Energoatom's website on Monday.
As she emphasized, in accordance with the resolutions of the IAEA General Conference, an armed attack on a nuclear facility intended for peaceful purposes is a violation of the UN Charter and the Statute of the Agency itself.
"It breaches every one of the IAEA Director General's Seven Indispensable Pillars. And by gutting the very rooms where international inspectors sit, it strikes at the safeguards system the entire world relies on to keep nuclear material accounted for and secure," the head of the Energoatom supervisory board noted.
According to her, Russia struck the CSFSF precisely because it enables Ukraine to store its own spent nuclear fuel independently of Russia.
She thanked and expressed support for the workers who fought the fire at the CSFSF in the dark and extinguished it on their own before dawn, noting that they should never have to find themselves in such a situation.
At the same time, Velshi appealed to foreign governments, emphasizing that treating attacks on nuclear facilities as an acceptable component of the war in Ukraine or anywhere else is not a sign of measured diplomacy and restraint, but an invitation to a disaster that has not yet occurred.
"each time one of these strikes passes with the radiation readings normal and the world's attention elsewhere, the threshold drops a little further. To treat attacks on nuclear facilities as a tolerable feature of this war – in Ukraine or anywhere else – is not a sophisticated exercise in diplomacy and restraint. It is an invitation to the disaster that has not yet come," Velshi said.
She specified that the drone hit the container receipt building, destroying the main staircase and the southern facade, as well as destroying the office used by IAEA inspectors. Nearby, in the long-term storage facility, 50 HI-STORM containers with spent nuclear fuel are located.
As reported with reference to NNEGC Energoatom, a Russian UAV hit and caused a fire in one of the buildings of the CSFSF at 02:10 on June 7, 2026. As a result of the enemy drone hit at the CSFSF site, the container receipt building was partially destroyed (spent nuclear fuel was not stored in it). The fire source with an area of 40 square meters was promptly localized and completely extinguished. There are no casualties among the personnel.
The radiation situation at the CSFSF site remains within normal limits, Energoatom said.
