Located near the shuttered nuclear power plant, the unit is “the largest dry spent fuel storage facility in the world” according to the EBRD which coordinated donation from OECD countries. Designed to last 100 years, the facility is to package in double-walled canisters and store in concrete the 21,000 spent fuel assemblies of Chornobyl reactors 1, 2 and 3.

Ukravtodor has repaved the 40 km road between Dyliatky checkpoint, the main entrance to the Exclusion Zone, and Pripyat town. “Our task is to put in order the popular tourist routes in three years and provide normal access to the Zone for conservationists, scientists, power engineers and entrepreneurs,” Alexander Kubrakov, Head of the State Highway Agency wrote on a Facebook post. He said that volume of tourists increased 15-fold in five years, from 8,000 in 2015 to 124,000 in 2019. He added: “Moreover, about 80% of them are international visitors.”