Ukraine-Russia war latest: Chernobyl strike sparks nuclear contamination fears as Zelensky meets Vance in Munich – UK Times

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied Russia was responsible for yesterday’s attack on Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear facility.

“There is no talk about strikes on nuclear infrastructure, nuclear energy facilities. Any such claim isn’t true. Our military doesn’t do that,” Mr Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

It was not possible to independently confirm who was behind the strike.

Both sides frequently trade blame when nuclear sites come under attack.

Mr Peskov alleged that the strike was a “false flag” attack staged by Ukraine to incriminate Russia and to thwart efforts to end the war through negotiations between Trump and Putin.

“It’s obvious that there are those (in the Ukrainian government) who will continue to oppose any attempts to launch a negotiation process, and it’s obvious that those people will do everything to try to derail this process,” Mr Peskov said.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova described the drone attack as a “reckless” act by Kyiv and noted that Russia had been part of the international effort to build the structure that was hit.

A drone armed with a warhead hit the protective outer shell of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant early yesterday, punching a hole in the structure and briefly starting a fire, in an attack Kyiv blamed on Russia. The Kremlin denied it was responsible.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is Europe’s biggest, has occasionally been hit by drones during the war without causing significant damage.

Sir Keir Starmer has reaffirmed Britain’s support for Ukraine joining Nato in a call with Volodymyr Zelensky as world leaders gather for a major security summit in Munich.

In the first talks between the pair since Donald Trump and his defence secretary said it was unlikely Ukraine would join Nato, but in an apparent swipe at that stance, the prime minister reiterated the UK’s commitment to the country’s path into the alliance.

Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell reports:

Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia may be preparing to launch intensified offensive operations into northern Ukraine or attack Nato’s eastern flank in 2026.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference yesterday, Mr Zelensky said that Russia is preparing upwards of 100,000 to 150,000 troops organised into 15 divisions to “aggravate the situation in the Belarus direction”.

Mr Zelensky said that Russia may intend to attack into Ukraine, Poland, or possibly the Baltic countries.

Increasingly alarmed that US security priorities lie elsewhere, a group of European countries has been quietly working on a plan to send troops into Ukraine to help enforce any future peace settlement with Russia.

Britain and France are at the forefront of the effort, though details remain scarce. The countries involved in the discussions are reluctant to tip their hand and give Russian president Vladimir Putin an edge should he agree to negotiate an end to the war he launched three years ago.

What is clear is that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky needs a guarantee that his country’s security will be assured until peace takes hold. The best protection would be the Nato membership that Ukraine has long been promised, but the US has taken that option off the table.

“I won’t get into the particular capabilities, but I do accept that if there is peace then there needs to be some sort of security guarantee for Ukraine and the UK will play its part in that,” prime minister Keir Starmer said in cautious remarks on Thursday.

I suspect that Trump’s feathers have been preened, his ego stroked, and his peacock pride inflated to bursting point. Trump appears to be putty in Putin’s manipulative hands, no match for the guile and cunning of this wily Russian fox.

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Talks between Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and US vice president JD Vance ended in Munich yesterday without an announcement of a critical minerals deal that is central to Kyiv’s push to win the backing of president Donald Trump.

Kyiv came back to the US earlier with a revised draft agreement of the deal that could open up its vast resources of key minerals to US investment, amid concerns in Kyiv over a US version that was presented to Ukraine on Wednesday.

“Our teams will continue to work on the document,” Mr Zelensky wrote on X, adding that he had had a “good meeting” with Mr Vance and that Kyiv was “ready to move towards as quickly as possible towards a real and guaranteed peace”.

Two members of the Ukrainian delegation told Reuters that “some details” still needed to be worked out.

It was not immediately clear what the sticking point was, but Ukraine is pressing for robust security guarantees from Europe and the United States that would protect it from Russia in the future if a peace deal is reached.

Ukraine’s nuclear ghosts were raised again on Friday after a drone armed with a warhead hit the protective outer shell of the plant at Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

The strike, which Kyiv blamed on Moscow, did not breach the plant’s inner containment shell and radiation levels did not increase, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Russia denied involvement, and accused Ukraine of waging a false flag attack. Their competing claims could not be independently verified.

Before his meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, the US vice president JD Vance lectured European officials on free speech and illegal migration on the continent, warning that they risk losing public support if they don’t quickly change course.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia. It’s not China. It’s not any other external actor,” Mr Vance said in an address to the Munich Security Conference.

“What I worry about is the threat from within – the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America,” Mr Vance said.

He further warned European officials: “If you’re running in fear of your own voters there’s nothing America can do for you.”

The speech and Donald Trump’s push for a quick way out of Ukraine have been met with intense concern and uncertainty at the annual gathering of world leaders and national security officials.

The vice president also warned the European officials against illegal migration, saying Europeans didn’t vote to open “floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants” and referencing an attack on Thursday in Munich where the suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan who arrived in Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2016.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country wants “security guarantees” before any talks with Russia, as the Trump administration presses both countries to find a quick endgame to the three-year war.

Shortly before sitting down with vice president JD Vance for highly anticipated talks at the Munich Security Conference, Mr Zelensky said he will only agree to meet in-person with Russian leader Vladimir Putin after a common plan is negotiated with US president Donald Trump.

The roughly 40-minute meeting between Mr Vance and Mr Zelensky produced no major announcements detailing the way out of the deadliest war in Europe since the Second World War.

Mr Zelensky made a plaintive statement about the state of play.

“We want peace very much,” Mr Zelensky said. “But we need real security guarantees.”