Despite the finding, the authorities have been unable to fix the damage from a drone that punctured Reactor No. 4’s outermost protective shield in February.

The 1986 reactor explosion in modern-day Ukraine is considered the world's biggest nuclear disaster.

Russia again attacked Ukraine overnight on December 10, launching 80 strike drones. Ukrainian air defense managed to shoot down most of the enemy UAVs, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.

The protective shield built around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site in Ukraine can no longer do its job to confine radioactive waste as a result of a drone strike earlier this year, according to the IAEA.

European officials are growing concerned that an emerging US-brokered peace deal in Ukraine could be exploited by Russia, paving the way for a reinvasion of territory in the war-battered nation’s eastern Donbas region.