Russia accused Ukraine this week of launching a drone attack which damaged Kursk nuclear power plant, which sits around 37 miles from the Ukrainian border, on Sunday.
The incident damaged an auxiliary transformer and caused the plant capacity to drop by 50 per cent, they said.
Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia, photographed on 19 March 2025 (Photo: Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters)
Ukraine has not commented on the incident, but one Ukrainian military insider told The i Paper troops had been ordered not to attack the plant during previous operations near by.
There have long been fears of a nuclear incident as a result of the Russian invasion, with fighting taking place close to two major plants: Kursk and Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia, which is the largest nuclear plant in Europe.
Military experts said that fighting in and around nuclear plants was becoming increasingly normalised.
“Some are unintentional. Others have a military logic to them, but there is also a larger Russian strategy of targeting the morale of civilians and invoking nuclear fears in the West,” he said.
The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on 15 June 2023 (Photo: Olga Maltseva/ AFP)Dr Marina Miron, a war studies expert at King’s College London, said that attacks on nuclear plants “may becoming somewhat normalised, which is in itself disconcerting”.
The plants have become significant pawns in the war.
Darya Dolzikova, a nuclear expert at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) in London, previously warned that military activity around nuclear sites “should not be normalised” but that such attacks may become more common.
Soldiers of an artillery crew in the Zaporizhzhia region fire a 122-mm howitzer D-30 at the positions of Russian troops in January (Photo: Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images)As well as causing infrastructural damage to an adversary or sending strong military signals, the “psychological salience” of nuclear sites mean they may be used for “escalatory, deterrent or coercive purposes”.
Attacks on nuclear sites ‘increasing danger’ of radiological accident
Lukasz Kulesa, director of nuclear policy at Rusi, said that while most nuclear reactors were relatively “well protected against attacks and accidents through their reinforced structures, this is not always the case”.
Ukrainian soldiers entered Kursk this time last year, but the Russian region has since been reclaimed by Kremlin forces. Here, Russian soldiers ride a quad bike (ATV) in the village of Kazachya Loknya, which was previously held by Ukrainian troops and retaken by Russia’s armed forces, in the Sudzha district of the Kursk region on 18 March 2025 (Photo: Tatyana Makeyeva/ AFP)
“Artillery or drone attacks and other military activities can also threaten staff and personnel working at the site, and damage or destroy support infrastructure crucial for the functioning of the power plant, such as water supply and power grid connections and generators, or spent nuclear fuel storage sites.
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Kulesa warned that “the fact that previous incidents related to the nuclear security of Zaporizhzhia power plant had not resulted in a nuclear accident should not be a reason for complacency”.
However, Bollfrass said that these attacks were “unlikely to bring about the next Chernobyl”.
“Something like a missile hitting stored spent fuel or an operating reactor would create a serious radiological hazard, but neither side has shown any interest in doing so. Most hits on or near nuclear power plants have been inflicted by drones with much less powerful warheads.”
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