The head of the UN Development Programme, Alexander De Croo, has warned about drone activity near Ukraine's Chornobyl nuclear plant. During a visit, he went inside the protective structure over the reactor destroyed in 1986 and saw recent drone damage. He told reporters that attacking such structures puts the safety of millions of people at risk. He stressed that a nuclear installation must not be treated as a target, and called for an investigation into the drone's origin.
The visit also marked the opening of a small solar power plant at Chornobyl, built with support from Lithuania and Japan. The facility will supply electricity to the damaged reactor's cooling systems. Restoring energy infrastructure has become the agency's largest area of work, as about half of Ukraine's energy system has been affected by attacks. According to estimates by the World Bank and UN agencies, repairing the country's war damage would cost more than 600 billion dollars.