Widow of engineer killed in Chornobyl meltdown dies in Kyiv drone attack

The widow of the first Soviet engineer to die in the Chornobyl nuclear power plant explosion was killed on Friday in Russia's massive drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

- Luke Harding Kyiv

Volodymyr Zelenskyy described Nataliia Khodemchuk as the victim of a “new tragedy caused by the Kremlin”, nearly four decades after her husband, Valerii, was killed inside nuclear reactor number four.

Valerii was the only plant worker whose body was never recovered from Chornobyl. A circulating pump operator, he was in the reactor’s main northern hall in April 1986 when an explosion ripped through the unit. His remains are still under the rubble.

After the blast, Nataliia Khodemchuk was evacuated from her home in the town of Pripyat, and given an apartment on Kyiv’s left-bank. On Friday, a drone crashed into the side of her building, known as Chornobyl house, on Honoré de Balzac Street in the Troieshchyna district.