The IAEA says a drone may have struck the cooling tower of a reactor at the Kursk nuclear power plant

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on Friday on the X platform that it had been informed that a drone may have struck the cooling tower of a reactor at Russia’s Kursk nuclear power plant on Thursday. According to information provided to the Vienna-based agency, the reactor was operating at the time of the incident, but its operation was not affected and no fire broke out.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi reaffirmed that any attack on a nuclear facility is unacceptable and called for maximum restraint to prevent a nuclear accident. Russia and Ukraine have not yet commented on the information.

The incident comes amid repeated warnings from the IAEA about the risks posed by the war in Ukraine. In July, the governor of the Kursk region accused Ukraine of striking a cooling tower at the Kursk II plant, which is under construction near the operating plant built in the 1970s. In August 2025, a Ukrainian drone allegedly caused a fire on the plant’s premises, without any abnormal increases in radioactivity. The plant has four reactors.