BANNER: Telegram posts overlaid on an image showing the aftermath of a drone strike on the sarcophagus, covering the damaged reactor at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, on February 14, 2025. (Sources: State Emergency Service of Ukraine and Telegram)

Nearly four decades after the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, widely acknowledged as one of the worst nuclear tragedies in history, the Chornobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) is once again in the spotlight amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The Chornobyl NPP was attacked by a drone on February 14, 2025, raising concerns about the safety and security of the nuclear site and fostering fears of new radiation leaks and contamination. In the strike’s aftermath, Ukrainian officials stated that a Russian drone strike damaged the protective shelter over the out-of-service nuclear reactor. At the time, the plant’s chief engineer, Oleksandr Titarchuk, stated that there was a risk of a radioactive leak, though authorities quickly contained the damage, preventing any leaks. The attack came three years after the attempted Russian occupation of the Chornobyl NPP, and right before world leaders gathered to attend the 2025 Munich Security Conference. In an impassioned speech at the conference, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called upon the rest of Europe to defend Ukraine from Russia (which was absent from the conference) and to prevent future nuclear scares, which threaten not only Ukraine but the rest of the continent as well.  

After the attack, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voiced support for Ukraine’s efforts to protect the NPP and avoid other nuclear-related incidents during the war. The IAEA provides technical and monitoring assistance to protect all NPPs in use in southern Ukraine. The IAEA’s stance surrounding the attack on the facility was clearly voiced by Director General Rafael Grossi, “It was clearly a serious incident in terms of nuclear safety, even though it could have been much worse. As I have stated repeatedly during this devastating war, attacking a nuclear facility must never happen.” 

After the drone strike, Russian officials and media quickly denied responsibility and began shifting blame to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). But even before the February 14 attack, Russian media and anonymous Telegram channels had pushed the idea of an attempted provocation by the AFU.  

On January 3, 2025, several Russian online news websites, Telegram military bloggers, and anonymous Telegram channels published and shared news of an alleged planned provocation against the Chornobyl NPP. The messages claimed that the Ukrainian government, in the lead up to Russian Orthodox Christmas and the upcoming elections in Belarus, was preparing an attack against the Chornobyl NPP that would be subsequently blamed on Russia launching drones out of Belarus. The narrative claimed this attack would then be used as a precedent to invade Belarus and impose a government favored by the West. One of the earliest iterations of this narrative emerged on January 3 from @Belarus_VPO, a Belarusian military news Telegram channel that posts military analysis and opinion pieces, frequently with an anti-West spin. Between January 3 and 9, we identified thirty-one Telegram posts and shares that duplicated the text of this initial message. An almost identical second message shared by @Belarus_VPO cited the alleged source of the claims – Turkish and Czech press, but did not specify any media outlet. We found twenty-eight posts and shares that duplicated or referenced this second message. The second message focused more on internal Belarusian politics and only mentioned the Chornobyl provocation in passing but linked to the initial message posted on @Belarus_VPO. The @Belarus_VPO account is present on multiple platforms, but is most popular on Telegram, where it has more than 25,000 subscribers. While the channel focuses on Belarus and internal politics, 19 of the 35 unique actors that promoted and reshared the messages on Telegram were identified as Russian in origin. The Russian Telegram channels that amplified the claim were predominantly military bloggers or channels aggregating military updates from the frontlines in Ukraine. Altogether, the messages received around 1.3 million views and generated over 12,000 reactions from readers.  

The narrative that Ukraine had planned provocations against Chornobyl sets up a preemptive defense against future allegations made against Russia. It also gives legitimacy to anonymous Telegram channels sharing these messages, as they can claim their intelligence was reliable. This particular narrative also incorporated the West as an enemy actor, speculating on the possible response from NATO forces to the predicted incursion.  

In a previous incident, Russian military bloggers created panic by suggesting the AFU intended to strike and damage the Kursk NPP in Russia. While the Kursk region has emerged as a battle line, it does not appear that the nuclear facility is a target. Ukraine’s attacks on Kursk, reportedly aided by Western weapons, have been exploited by Russian narratives that suggest NATO’s involvement signals the possibility of a nuclear escalation, prompting calls for either the cessation of Ukrainian military activity or the Western support of it. Additionally, this further contributes to the larger Russian narrative of the war in Ukraine as the ultimate conflict against the West, a claim used to explain away military failures or curate a sense of general mistrust of Western society. 

The IAEA workers stationed on site at Chornobyl NPP reported hearing the drone strike against the containment dome of Reactor No. 4 at around 2:00 am local time. Following the attack, Russian officials quickly denied any military engagement with the Chornobyl NPP. At 5:00 am local time, a statement from the Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, was published on TASS. Peskov was quoted as saying:  “There can be no talk of strikes being carried out on any nuclear infrastructure facilities, nuclear energy infrastructure. […] The Russian military does not do this.” Other Russian media outlets claimed Ukraine was responsible for the attack on its territory. On Telegram, Russian lawmaker Artyom Dmytruk questioned whether Zelenskyy or Andriy Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, were holding the controllers themselves. Statements from Russian media also claimed the purpose of the attack was to gain sympathy from Western countries at the Munich Security Conference. This messaging was refuted by Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government in many forums, including his speech at the conference and public interviews.

While Russian officials and Kremlin-affiliated outlets like TASS and RT were first to publicly address the attack, in the week following the February 14 drone strike, Russian online news media, Telegram channels, and VKontakte groups further pushed the claim alleging the AFU was responsible for the Chornobyl attack. The DFRLab recorded more than 160 individual messages and reposts of messages containing the keywords “Chornobyl” and “provocation,” which speculated about the potential use of the attack by Ukraine as a policy lever, preceding the Munich Security Conference and any possible peace talks. Telegram channels speculated on the timing of the attack, claiming the strike was too convenient for the Ukrainian government, as it provided a motive to derail any upcoming peace talks, giving Ukraine the upper hand. To support their claim, the channels referred to the alleged lack of endangerment resulting from the attack. Channels also claimed that if Russia had sought to attack Chornobyl, it would have done so earlier, disregarding the danger to the station brought about by Russia’s military occupation of the NPP in early 2022. Other channels focused on the origin of the drone, claiming that pictures from the impact site, posted by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, disclosed a serial number of a machine that had been launched in 2023, and used it as proof that Ukraine staged the event. The allegations of a used serial number originated from a Telegram channel that posts military updates and refers to an anonymous insider source that allegedly had access to the serial numbers of launched drones. The channel provides no further evidence, and this specific claim has not been raised by other actors. 

The 103 Telegram channels examined in this investigation actively promoted official statements from the Kremlin about the attack, often citing Peskov and his denial of Russian involvement. The majority of the identified channels were registered in Russia, representing news aggregators related to the Russia-Ukraine war, military bloggers and channels targeted at the occupied territories of Ukraine. The news sources and Telegram accounts also reshared claims made by Maria Zakharova, Director of the information and press department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at an official press conference held on the day of the attack, in which she alleged Russian intelligence knew of the AFU’s alleged plans to conduct a provocation at a nuclear facility and shift the blame to Russia to better position itself with partners and secure additional support. Zakharova claimed that while Russia knew about the intended attack, it was expected against Zaporizhzhia NPP, not Chornobyl. Beyond Zakharova’s statements, news websites also co-opted past narratives, alleging the development of a “dirty bomb” on the premises of the Chornobyl NPP as evidence that Ukraine had long been intending to stage a provocation connected to the location. 

Beyond shifting blame to Ukraine, the Telegram channels also accused the Ukrainian government of corrupt practices, claiming the sarcophagus covering Reactor No. 4 should have withstood a drone strike and alleging the material gave way due to money laundering involving the procurement of cheap materials. The channels also speculated about possible Western origins of the attack plan and claimed that Ukraine’s desire to escalate and involve NATO in future military activities could be one of the reasons for the alleged provocation.  

The claim suggesting Western involvement in the attack is typical of Russian narratives surrounding the war and pertaining to attacks on nuclear stations. Some Telegram channels specifically named the United Kingdom as a potentially interested party in the regional unrest, while others blamed the West in general and NATO in particular. Military bloggers and anonymous Telegram news channels claimed that much like Ukraine itself, Western states, seeking to keep pressure on Russia, may have intentionally interfered with peace talks sought by the US government.

Notably, some channels speculated about the significance of an attack against the Chornobyl NPP, referring to its importance in the historic memory of the continent, not only Ukraine. The scale of the 1986 Chornobyl tragedy served as a warning of what could result from significant damage to the plant in the case of an attack, providing a tangible scenario and reference point for Russian fearmongering.  

The incorporation of the historical context into the narrative helps adapt it to multiple audiences, using the well-documented damage caused by the 1986 Chornobyl incident to speculate and sow panic around what additional damage to the fourth reactor could trigger in Ukraine and Europe. This also differentiates the accusations hoisted against the Ukrainian government in the case of Chornobyl versus those associated with the Zaporizhzhia and Kursk nuclear power plants – the clear understanding of what the fallout looked like last time means that there is little need to draw a threatening scenario out of thin air, all the consequences are already known. 

Iryna Adam and Samuel Rothbardt, “Narrative and provocation: What Telegram had to say about the February attack against Chornobyl NPP,” Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), April 25th, 2025, https://dfrlab.org/2025/04/24/narrative-and-provocation-what-telegram-had-to-say-about-the-february-attack-against-chornobyl-npp/.