"Relative abundances of elk, roe deer, red deer, and wild boar within the Chernobyl exclusion zone are similar to those in four (uncontaminated) nature reserves in the region," writes a team led by wildlife ecologist Tatiana Deryabina of the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve.

"Dogs at Chernobyl are now genetically distinct … thanks to years of exposure to ionizing radiation, study finds."

Tributes have been paid to those who risked their lives tackling the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in 1986, with a fundraising process launched for ongoing safety work at an international conference held at the plant.

Forty years after the world’s worst nuclear accident forced more than 100,000 people from their homes, the forests around the Chernobyl reactor are teeming with life that was never supposed to return.

Ideas have been floated for how the contaminated zone could bring economic benefits to Ukraine. But for the foreseeable future, it will be an army-controlled security belt.

Chernobyl's past and present collide as residents and workers reflect on the 1986 disaster and Russia's recent invasion.

The Chernobyl disaster remains the world’s worst nuclear accident, displacing hundreds of thousands and reshaping global safety standards decades later.

Photographs from the first days of the Chernobyl disaster and of the aftermath years later show the response, the evacuation and the long-term consequences of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

Russia’s invasion deepens the saga of Ukraine’s Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. A woman who fled war and ended up there says, “We overcame radiation. We will overcome Russia, too.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency has issued a stark warning after a drone strike killed a worker at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, raising fears of a new Chernobyl-style