Wildfires break out in Chernobyl amid a non-functioning radiation-monitoring system

Seven wildfires have broken out in the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, according to a statement by Ukraine’s Parliament. The fires, which were observed via satellite, exceed Ukraine’s emergency classification criteria tenfold. Ukrainian officials stated that the fires were caused by “the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, namely the shelling or arson,” though this has not been independently verified. Wildfires risk mobilizing and dispersing radioactive contaminants left over from the 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl.