Ukraine’s nuclear ghosts have been stirred up again 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 on Friday did not breach the plant’s inner containment shell and radiation levels did not increase.

Ukraine said a Russian drone crashed into the containment structure, starting a fire, but so far radiation levels have stayed constant.

A Russian drone struck the former nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in an attack overnight into Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

A drone armed with a warhead hit the outer shell of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant, briefly starting a fire, in an attack Kyiv blamed on Russia.

The outer shell that was struck is a protective cover built in 2016 over a heavy concrete containment structure. Soon after the 1986 disaster, the inner layer (in which there was no indication of a breach on Friday morning), was placed on the plant’s fourth reactor. The containment shells seek to prevent radiation leaks.

For the first time, a Russian projectile directly struck a structure containing a nuclear reactor. Moscow has increasingly been targeting Ukraine's nuclear infrastructure.

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