Inside Chornobyl: 40 years after disaster, nuclear site still at risk in Russia’s war

In February 2025, a cheap Russian drone tore through Chornobyl’s confinement shelter. Workers warn the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident is not safe yet The dosimeter clipped to your chest ticks faster the moment you step off the designated path inside the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Step back, and it slows again – an invisible line between clean ground and contamination. Above rises the “new safe confinement” (NSC) – the largest, movable steel structure ever built, taller than th...

By Pjotr Sauer in Chornobyl. Photographs by Julia Kochetova