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A Ukrainian kamikaze drone struck the turbine hall of Power Unit No. 6 at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on May 30, marking the latest in a series of attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear facility. Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom confirmed the strike, though plant management said no injuries or damage to critical operations resulted from the incident.
The plant, which has been under Russian control since March 2022, remains in cold shutdown with no electricity generation.
A pattern that keeps getting worse
On April 27, a plant employee was killed in a separate drone attack on the facility.
Rosatom’s chief, Alexei Likhachev, issued a pointed warning on May 18, saying the situation at Zaporizhzhia is approaching a “point of no return.” He called for immediate international efforts to de-escalate tensions around the plant. Twelve days later, another drone hit the facility.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has been monitoring conditions at the site throughout the conflict. The IAEA has documented damage to external monitoring equipment and non-critical infrastructure at the plant, but has confirmed that nuclear core facilities have remained uncompromised through the string of attacks.
What Zaporizhzhia represents beyond the battlefield
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant isn’t just any power station. With six reactor units, it’s the largest nuclear facility on the European continent. Before the war, it supplied roughly a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity. Now it generates nothing, sitting in cold shutdown. The plant’s occupation by Russian forces in March 2022 was one of the early shocks of the full-scale invasion. Both sides have accused each other of attacks on the facility, and the IAEA has maintained a rotating team of inspectors on-site in an effort to provide independent verification of conditions.
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