With Russia threatening a renewed offensive from Belarus, Ukraine is reinforcing the defense of its northern border. The Chornobyl nuclear plant is being draped in anti-drone netting, and hardened checkpoints are going up along the frontier.
Russian propaganda has spread disinformation claiming that Ukraine is preparing “an extremely dangerous provocation to disrupt the operation of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.” Citing unnamed “Western data,” Russian media report that Ukraine’s Armed Forces are “preparing to launch combat operations” at the plant — “digging trenches” in the Red Forest and “planning to launch drones from the station.”
Russian propaganda is distorting an article in the German outlet Der Spiegel about a possible repeat Russian offensive from Belarus along the lines of 2022. Faced with that threat, Der Spiegel writes, Ukrainian forces are strengthening the defense of the Chornobyl plant. To that end, Ukraine is installing hardened checkpoints along its northern border and building anti-tank obstacles and covered defensive galleries.
The article stresses that Belarus, 15 kilometers away, has not entered Russia’s war outright. Should that change, however, Chornobyl would fall within range of FPV drones. Given that Russia is actively attacking Ukrainian nuclear facilities with drones, Ukraine’s defense forces have begun draping the Chornobyl plant in anti-drone netting to fend off such strikes, Der Spiegel writes.
The outlet also recalled that it was Russia that tried to militarize the Chornobyl plant in the first days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian units advancing from Belarus entered the exclusion zone, seized the plant’s facilities and took its staff hostage. It was the Russians who then began building fortifications in the Red Forest, one of the most contaminated locations anywhere in the exclusion zone. Heavy military vehicles moved constantly through the contaminated terrain, carrying radioactive dust out into clean areas of Chernihiv and Kyiv regions and causing temporary spikes in radiation levels at local points.
The Russians held the plant and remained in the irradiated zone for roughly a month. After the plant was liberated, it emerged that Russian forces had stolen no less than $135 million worth of equipment from the Chornobyl plant, and that its documents and archives had been removed or destroyed. Nine Chornobyl plant employees were killed by Russia, and five more abducted.
Even after its liberation, the Chornobyl plant remains at risk. According to the IAEA, the international mission has witnessed increased Russian military activity at all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. Agency Director General Rafael Grossi recalled that in February 2025 a Russian drone struck the protective sarcophagus over the destroyed fourth reactor unit at Chornobyl.
Analysis has found that the structure — the product of nearly 20 years of work and more than $2 billion — no longer performs its protective functions. The New Safe Confinement must be restored by 2030 at the latest, or the consequences will be catastrophic. Repairs will require hundreds of millions of dollars. In other words, it is Russian military action against Ukraine that continues to pose the principal threat to Ukraine’s nuclear facilities.
Read more on this subject in the StopFake articles Fake: Zelensky Threatens A Preemptive Strike On Belarus and Fake: The General Staff ‘Refuted’ Zelensky’s Remarks About the Risk of an Offensive From Belarus.
