World News for Students of English

01-05-2026 15:00

Ukraine is marking the 40th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the worst civilian nuclear accident in history. During commemorations, people gathered at midnight to honor the victims and the 600,000 liquidators who cleaned up the

radioactive site. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used this anniversary to accuse Russia of nuclear terrorism.

He stated that Russian drones frequently fly over the closed plant, and one even hit the protective shell last year, which created a high risk of a new radioactive leak. The original disaster resulted from human error and design flaws during a safety test in reactor number four. It contaminated Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. While a UN report once estimated 4,000 deaths from radiation, other organizations like Greenpeace believe the number is closer to 100,000.

Zelenskyy warned that Russia’s current military actions are once again bringing the world close to a man-made disaster. The international community is being urged to stop these strikes near nuclear sites.

Difficult words: commemoration (a ceremony in which a person or event is remembered), liquidator (a person who helped clean up the Chernobyl site), error (a mistake), flaw (a small mistake or fault in something that makes it not perfect).

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