Ukraine is seeking solutions to repair the damage caused by a Russian drone attack to the confinement vessel at the stricken Chornobyl nuclear power plant, a government minister said on Saturday. Environment minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said Ukraine was working together with experts to determine the best way to restore the proper functioning of the containment vessel, or arch, after the 14 February drone strike. “We are actively working on this ... We, of course, need to restore the ‘arch’ so that there are no leaks under any circumstances, because ensuring nuclear and radiation safety is the main task,” she said. The arch was installed in 2016 to cover the leaking “sarcophagus” underneath, hurriedly put in place in the weeks following the 1986 Chornobyl disaster. The February drone attack punched a large hole in the new containment structure’s outer cover and exploded inside.
Russia and Ukraine’s top diplomats on Saturday used a conference in Turkey to trade accusations of violating a tentative US-brokered deal to pause strikes on energy infrastructure. Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha says Russia has launched daily attacks at Ukraine since agreeing to the pause. Sybiha said Russia had launched “almost 70 missiles, over 2,200 (exploding) drones, and over 6,000 guided aerial bombs at Ukraine, mostly at civilians,” since agreeing to the limited pause on strikes. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Moscow has stuck to the terms of a limited 30-day ceasefire. Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that Ukraine had carried out five attacks on Russian energy infrastructure over the past day.
Lavrov praised Donald Trump on Saturday for what he said was a better understanding of the Ukraine conflict than any other western leader. “President Trump was the first and so far, I think, almost the only one among the western leaders who repeatedly, with conviction, several times stated that it was a huge mistake to pull Ukraine into Nato,” Lavrov said at the Antalya diplomacy forum in southern Turkey. Trump has previously said it was unlikely Kyiv would win back all its territory, and that he was “OK” with Ukraine not having Nato membership.
The US special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, said his remarks over a possible partition of Ukraine had been misinterpreted. In an interview with the Times, Kellogg said the country could be divided “almost like the Berlin after world war two” as part of a peace deal. Writing on X, Kellogg said he was referring to “a post-cease fire resiliency force in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty”. Under this plan, Russian troops would remain in territory already seized by Moscow, with British and French forces stationed in Kyiv and in other parts of the country.
The US has demanded control of a crucial pipeline in Ukraine used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, in a move described as a colonial shakedown. US and Ukrainian officials met on Friday to discuss White House proposals for a minerals deal. Donald Trump wants Kyiv to hand over its natural resources as “payback” in return for weapons delivered by the previous Biden administration.
Russia’s ambassador to the UK has not denied allegations that Russian sensors have been hidden in seas around Great Britain in an attempt to track UK nuclear submarines. Andrei Kelin told the BBC on Sunday that while he did not deny Russia was attempting to track British submarines, he rejected the idea that such activities presented a threat to the UK. “All these threats are extremely exaggerated,” he said.
US envoy Steve Witkoff wrapped up his latest talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Friday, after Donald Trump urged his Russian counterpart to move quicker to end what he said was the country’s “senseless war” with Ukraine. The Kremlin said afterwards only that the meeting had taken place and “focused on various aspects of the Ukrainian settlement”, without elaborating. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said earlier that he expected no diplomatic “breakthroughs” from the talks – Witkoff’s third with Putin since February.
A Russian guided bomb struck a house in the north-eastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk, injuring four people and possibly trapping three more under rubble, the regional governor said. Kupiansk, located in Kharkiv region, was seized by Russian forces in the early days of the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was recaptured by Ukrainian troops later that year in a lightning counteroffensive.
A Ukrainian F-16 pilot was killed in combat, Kyiv said Saturday, in the second such incident since the delivery of the precious US-made fighter jets to Ukraine to help fight Russia’s invasion. The army did not give more details on the circumstances of how he died and said that a commission was working to establish “all the circumstances of the tragedy.” Kyiv received the first deliveries of F-16s last year, after spending two years pushing for them.
• This article was amended on 15 April 2025. The Chornobyl confinement vessel was installed in 2016, not 2019 as said in an earlier version.
