A Ukrainian drone struck a laboratory at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on May 3, 2026, according to Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the incident and requested access to inspect the damage.
No casualties were reported from the strike, which hit an external radiation control laboratory located outside the plant’s safety perimeter. But the attack comes just days after a separate drone incident on April 27, 2026, reportedly killed a driver employed in the plant’s transport department, according to Russian-installed management at the facility.
Rosatom has used increasingly urgent language to describe the situation, warning that repeated drone strikes could push the facility toward what it calls a “point of no return” for nuclear safety.
The state of Europe’s largest nuclear plant
Zaporizhzhia has been under Russian control since March 2022, and all six of its reactors are currently in cold shutdown. That means the plant isn’t generating any electricity. Before the conflict, it supplied roughly a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity. Its six VVER-1000 reactors, when operational, represented a significant chunk of the country’s energy infrastructure.
