{"id":508549,"date":"2026-05-25T20:06:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/a-russian-missile-destroyed-the-chernobyl-museum-in-kyiv-a-month-after-its-reopening-loss-for-ukraine-and-for-the-world\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T20:06:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T00:06:36","slug":"a-russian-missile-destroyed-the-chernobyl-museum-in-kyiv-a-month-after-its-reopening-loss-for-ukraine-and-for-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/uncategorized\/a-russian-missile-destroyed-the-chernobyl-museum-in-kyiv-a-month-after-its-reopening-loss-for-ukraine-and-for-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"A Russian missile destroyed the Chernobyl Museum in Kyiv a month after its reopening: \u201cLoss for Ukraine and for the world\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"They had survived Chernobyl itself. The objects that the Chernobyl National Museum of Kiev<\/strong> kept \u2014the suits of the liquidators<\/strong>, their letters, the photographs of the exclusion zone, the files that for decades the Soviet Union<\/strong> kept secret\u2014 had gone through forty years to tell how the worst nuclear accident in history was managed, and how it was hidden. In the early hours of Sunday, a Russian missile turned about 40% of that archive into ashes.<\/strong><\/a>\n\n\n

\u201cRussia’s attack aimed not only to destroy lives, but also memory\u201d<\/strong>, wrote President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> on Telegram, confirming that the lost pieces are unrecoverable.<\/p>\n\n\nA worker inside the Chernobyl National Museum, where “not a single room was left undamaged”, according to its director; Sunday’s attack destroyed 40% of the exhibits on display.\n\nOne of the exhibition halls of the Chernobyl National Museum, covered in debris after the attack; the fire collapsed the roof and floors between the third and second levels (Ministry of Culture of Ukraine)\n\nThe missile hit at 3:50 a.m.<\/strong>, according to video recordings captured by Yaroslav Yemelianenko<\/strong>, director of the Chernobyl Tourism Operators Association, who filmed two missiles<\/strong> flying over the historic St. Sophia Cathedral<\/strong> heading towards the historic Podil<\/strong> neighborhood, where the museum is located. The attack unleashed a large-scale fire<\/strong> that destroyed the roof and collapsed part of the back wall of the third exhibition hall.\n\nWe recommend reading:<\/a>\n\n\n

Russian missiles flying over the historic Podil district and hitting the Chernobyl Museum<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\nThe destruction has a symbolic weight that is hard to ignore: the museum had reopened its doors on April 27, 2026<\/strong>, just a month ago, after an extensive restoration scheduled to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident<\/strong>.\n\n\n

\u201cThe museum disappeared. This is not accidental: they are deliberately targeting our history<\/strong>,\u201d said Yemelianenko.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Save What You Can<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\nA worker removes a damaged piece from the Chernobyl National Museum; among the rescued items are a painting by Maria Prymachenko and the flag raised at the plant after its evacuation in 2022.\n\nWhen the flames subsided, the staff began to rescue what remained. Among the salvaged items are materials from the warehouses, a painting by Maria Prymachenko<\/strong> and the Ukrainian flag<\/strong> raised at the Chernobyl plant after its evacuation by Russian forces in 2022<\/strong>. Workers were rescuing objects belonging to the Chernobyl liquidators<\/strong> – the hundreds of thousands of people mobilized to contain and clean up the radiation after the accident – and drying historical embroideries among the rubble. In an adjacent building, with the windows blown out by the blast wave, the authorities arrested a looter.\n\nEmployees of the Chernobyl National Museum dry rescued objects after the attack: among the rubble, workers cleaned belongings of the liquidators and historical embroideries.\n\nA worker cleans the interior of the Chernobyl National Museum, opened in 1992 in a former fire station in the historic Podil district.\n\n\n

The internal destruction was almost total.<\/strong> \u201cAs of today, there is not a single room in the Chernobyl National Museum that has not been destroyed. Our third floor practically disappeared<\/strong>. The ceilings between the third and second floors collapsed,\u201d described to Reuters <\/em>the director of the museum, Vitalina Martynovska<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\nAccording to preliminary estimates, 40% of the pieces on display were lost<\/strong>, although a large part of the collection was saved. “I want to trust that we will still find some objects trapped under the collapsed plaster structures,” he added.\n\nInterior of the Chernobyl National Museum after the bombing on Sunday, one of the few in the world dedicated to the nuclear catastrophe, comparable only to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.\n\nThe museum, opened in 1992<\/strong> in a historic building of a former fire station in the Podil district, was a rarity on a global scale. It preserved archives, photographs, personal belongings of the liquidators, and multimedia installations about the 1986<\/strong> accident. Another of the damaged museum halls, with a ripped-off door and shattered glass; the windows burst due to the shock wave, which also reached neighboring buildings (Ministry of Culture of Ukraine)\n\nFor Mariana Budjeryn<\/strong>, a senior researcher at the Nuclear Security Policy Center of the Security Studies Program at MIT<\/strong> and of Ukrainian origin, it was one of the few places on the planet entirely dedicated to the impact of the misuse of nuclear energy on human life, comparable only to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum<\/strong>.\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s a huge loss for Ukraine and for the world\u201d<\/strong>, he wrote on LinkedIn<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heritage Under Fire<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\nRescuers work at the museum damaged by the attack, which unleashed a large fire; the tasks to shore up the structure and recover pieces continued this Monday\n\nThe museum was one more of the symbols hit on Sunday. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs<\/strong> lost windows; its head, Andriy Sybiha<\/strong>, recalled that the building, the work of the architect Iosif Langbard<\/strong> in 1939<\/strong>, had not suffered damage since the Second World War<\/strong>. \u201cThe attacks targeted the heart of ancient Rus\u201d, he denounced, referring to the medieval Slavic state that Ukraine considers the cradle of its national identity.\n\nAlso hit were the House of Contracts<\/strong>, the Postal Station<\/strong> and the Church of the Nativity of Christ<\/strong> in Poshtova Square, the National Art Museum<\/strong> \u2014whose collection was saved\u2014 and the Kyiv Opera<\/strong> in Podil.\n\nZelensky <\/strong>and the Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko<\/strong>, toured the museum in the morning. \u201cI still don’t know what Chernobyl did to offend our enemy. In 1986 they hid the truth about Chernobyl. Today they continue to hide why they are doing all this. Perhaps they want to erase our memory<\/strong>. But, despite everything, we will rebuild and restore everything\u201d, said Klymenko. Ukraine requested emergency meetings at the UN Security Council and the OSCE.\n\n\n

The most extensive bombing of the war<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\nThe attack on the museum was part of one of the most intense bombings of Kyiv since the beginning of the Russian invasion<\/strong>, more than four years ago. The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia launched 90 missiles and 600 drones<\/strong> of different types in an offensive that lasted for hours. Due to the number of locations hit, it was the largest attack against Kyiv of the entire large-scale war<\/strong>, according to the head of the Military Administration of the city, Tymur Tkachenko.\n\nThe balance, according to the Ukrainian authorities, was four dead<\/strong> \u2014two in the capital and two in the Kyiv region\u2014 and more than 80 injured<\/strong>, including several children. In the capital alone, about 30 residential buildings were damaged or destroyed<\/strong>, as well as schools<\/strong>, markets<\/strong> and offices<\/strong>. The Council of Ministers<\/strong>, the seat of the Ukrainian government, lost windows due to the blast wave, and the residence of the Albanian ambassador to Ukraine was also hit<\/strong>, according to Albanian Foreign Minister Ferit Hoxha.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They had survived Chernobyl itself. The objects that the Chernobyl National Museum of Kiev kept \u2014the suits of the liquidators, their letters, the photographs of the exclusion zone, the files that for decades the Soviet Union kept secret\u2014 had gone through forty years to tell how the worst nuclear accident in history was managed, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-28ip","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","dum_api":{"author_name":"Yerandi Santana","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/cropped-WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-13-at-5.35.07-PM-96x96.jpeg","categories_name":["Uncategorized"],"featured_media_url":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}