After their stay in Chernobyl, near the place where the nuclear disaster occurred in 1986, seven buses with Russian soldiers suffering from “acute radiation syndrome would have arrived at a hospital in Belarus in the city of Gomel for the necessary radiation therapy. Presumably they dug trenches in the “highly radioactive zone”, exposed themselves unprotected to the strong radiation, reports the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN. Russian soldiers with “acute radiation sickness who escaped from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant also spoke about Yaroslav Yemelianenko, an employee of the Public Council of Ukraine’s State Agency for Exclusion Zones Management. “There are mandatory rules to follow here. They dug the trenches by exposing themselves to radiation, now they will face the consequences,” Yemelianenko said.
The news is not confirmed by independent international sources, but the Pentagon said Russian troops are evacuating Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear site, where fighting has forced workers to work around the clock to prevent further collapses.
What happened in Chernobyl
In recent hours, workers at the plant have reported that without wearing proper protection, Russian soldiers on their march to capture the Chernobyl nuclear site kicked up clouds of radioactive dust in a highly toxic area, endangering their own lives. According to these sources, the soldiers of the invading army entered the socalled Red Forest, named after the color the trees took after the April 1986 disaster, without any protection or shielding against radiation. One of the site’s two employees called this behavior “suicide,” as the military convoy most likely inhaled nonnegligible amounts of radioactive material.
“Russian troops kicked up radioactive clouds”
The two Ukrainian workers heard by Reuters were present when Russian tanks arrived at Chernobyl on February 24 and took over the site. During the occupation, employees were effectively held hostage and continued to work nonstop (up to 50 hours at a time) to protect the facility, including reactor number 4, which exploded in 1986. After three weeks, they admitted the inmates. Some employees leave the plant and are replaced. The last deployment of the technical staff at the accident site from 1986 took place a week ago.
A satellite image of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Photo EPA/MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES HANDOUT
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk accused Russia of “irresponsible” actions around the occupied Chernobyl nuclear power plant and called on the UN to send a mission to assess the risks of radioactive contamination. “We demand that the United Nations Security Council take immediate action to demilitarize the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and establish a UN special mission to eliminate the risk of a repeat nuclear catastrophe,” Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister said.
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On February 25, Ukraine’s nuclear inspection found an increase in radiation levels in the area, but it had not been able to define exactly what had happened. It is now clear that it was the movements of Russian heavy vehicles that hurled radioactive material into the air just a hundred kilometers from Kyiv. The Red Forest, through which the military convoy would have passed, is so contaminated that it is offlimits even to the factory workers themselves.
The radiation levels beyond the safe threshold
According to employees, sensors scattered in the area have marked radiation levels beyond safe thresholds after the passage of Russian soldiers. On February 27, Ukraine’s agency that manages the exclusion zone said the latest figures for nuclear waste storage sites, collected before control of the surveillance system was lost, showed a radiation dose seven times higher than normal. After occupying the site, the International Atomic Energy Agency (AIEA) said radiation levels had risen but posed no threat to the surrounding population. However, what the situation is at the moment is difficult to say as the IAEA has not received any updated data since last March 9th.
Because today the Russians show their soldiers without legs and arms
According to workers interviewed, the military did not use protective equipment. Not even the specialists trained to operate in the presence of radiation would have worn any type of protection. When one of the plant’s employees asked a Russian officer if he knew about the 1986 nuclear disaster, “They had no idea. They had no idea what kind of facility they were in,” he said. The only information regular soldiers had in their possession was that the site was “vitally important,” but nothing more.
Atomic Energy Agency mission in Ukraine
Rafael Mariano Grossi, DirectorGeneral of the IAEA, arrived in Ukraine to monitor the situation to help local authorities manage the “unprecedented risk” the country’s nuclear power plants are facing as a result of the Russian military offensive. Mariano Grossi, as the executive himself reports on his Twitter profile, “crossed the border into Ukraine to launch a mission to ensure the safety of the country’s nuclear power plants. We must act now to prevent the threat of an accident. Nuclear.” . According to the IAEA in a statement, the agency’s mission includes talks with senior officials in Kyiv and aims to “launch immediate support for the safety of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.” The initiative includes the deployment of experts to priority facilities and the dispatch of supplies essential to the safety and security of nuclear facilities.
Burial of Russian soldiers banned because of censorship: “They put them in mobile cremators”