Russian Strike on the Chornobyl Museum and Shop.

On May 24, 2026, the year marking the 40th anniversary of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident, russian missiles struck the National Chornobyl Museum in Kyiv's Podil district. The museum had opened a new exhibition exactly one month earlier. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, approximately 40% of the museum's objects were irretrievably lost.

At 3:50 a.m., two missiles flew over Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv toward Podil, less than a minute apart. Yaroslav Yemelianenko saw them from his window and recorded them on video. Their direction made it clear that the museum was in their path. At the scene, the roof was burning and part of the rear wall of the third hall was missing. Firefighters were already pouring water on the flames. Yaroslav called the museum's director, Vitalina Martynovska: "Disaster has struck. The museum is gone."

Our Chornobyl shop operated on the museum's ground floor. It was destroyed.

For us, this was the second blow. The first came in 2022, when the russian invaders destroyed everything CHORNOBYL TOUR had in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone: information centers, vehicles, and all our facilities. Before the invasion, Chornobyl tourism funded most of our charitable work. When it disappeared, the shop became the only source of income supporting our center's team. Now it, too, had been destroyed.

But most importantly, everyone was alive. Starting that night, we cleared rubble and saved whatever we could: drying embroidered shirts from Chornobyl, wiping down the liquidators' books and artifacts.

The blast wave blew out windows and doors in a neighboring apartment building. A woman could be heard screaming from the stairwell. She had been taking a sick relative to a shelter. When she returned, she found a man in her apartment, now without a door, with her belongings. Among the stolen items were even phones that had belonged to her deceased relatives. Yaroslav helped recover her belongings, pulled the looter out of the stairwell, and handed him over to the police. Many people later wrote that he should have dealt with the man on the spot. "We are building a country governed by the rule of law, and we shouldn't act in the heat of the moment," Yaroslav replied.

That same day, people began asking where they could send money to rebuild the shop. We did not launch a fundraiser. "There are many families right now who need help more than we do. Donate to the Defense Forces. And if you want to help us specifically, buy something to remember Chornobyl by from our online shop. We're happy to provide you with a service in exchange for money. As for giving us money for nothing - thank you sincerely, but please don't," Yaroslav said.

Kyiv restaurateur Iryna Borets saw what had happened and offered us a home: the DIM N10 restaurant at 10 Spaska Street, across the road from the museum. We had never met before the strike. In June, the shop reopened there. DIM N10 now serves Chornobyl coffee with mugwort, made to our recipe, and the restaurant's safe basement has a lecture space. On June 19, the first Chornobyl gathering since the strike took place there.

When russia smashes windows, Ukrainians open doors.