Three months after the attack, the footage of the enormous hole remains impressive. A crater about 15 square meters wide is open at the top right of the steel shell that covers the former Chernobyl nuclear plant, located in Ukraine near the Belarusian border. The explosion was caused on February 14 by a Russian drone attack. Captured by surveillance cameras, the footage was shown on Wednesday, May 14, during the general assembly of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), held in London.

France took advantage of this event to announce a donation of €10 million intended to fund urgent initial work, as rainwater seeps in. "Every new missile strike, every drone attack leads to new damage, which requires urgent intervention," warned Olga Zykova, Ukraine's deputy minister of finance.

The damage from the attack was significant. It was concentrated on the New Safe Confinement, an enormous structure standing 109 meters high covering reactor number 4, the one that exploded in 1986. The construction of the arch, which cost €2.1 billion, was completed in 2017 and was supposed to provide a century of nuclear safety. Sufficient, in principle, to finally work on the dismantling of the reactor, which has not yet started. Upon exploding, the drone pierced the steel shell of the arch. It then ignited the membrane underneath, burning over 200 square meters. To combat the fire, firefighters had to drill more than 200 holes in the steel.

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