- Earlier this month, Russian soldiers relinquished control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
- The troops stationed there will soon feel “the consequences” of the radiation poisoning, a Ukrainian official said.
- Yevhen Kramarenko said the Russians dug trenches and drove to the most contaminated areas of the site.
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Russian troops that took Chernobyl will soon suffer the effects of radiation exposure after digging trenches in the nuclear zone, the head of Ukraine’s state agency for exclusion zone management said on Wednesday.
Yevhen Kramarenko told reporters that Russian troops who occupied the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone for five weeks dug trenches and shelters for their vehicles in an area known as the Red Forest.
The Red Forest is a 1.5 square mile pine forest that died from radiation exposure shortly after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. According to Reuters, it remains the most contaminated part of the exclusion zone.
“We believe very soon [the Russians] will feel the consequences of the received radiation. Some of them will feel it in months, others in years,” Kramarenko said at a news conference on Wednesday. “But all the soldiers who were there will eventually feel it.”
He also confirmed previous reports of Russian soldiers driving through the Red Forest without protective gear and inhaling clouds of radioactive dust.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), radiation poisoning can have different effects depending on the level and duration of exposure.
In more extreme cases, radiation poisoning can cause internal bleeding and skin burns, as well as thyroid cancer and cardiovascular disease, according to the CDC.
Russian troops left the exclusion zone earlier this month after some of their soldiers “panic” at the first sign of radiation sickness, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company Energoatom said, according to The Guardian.
It’s unclear exactly what her alleged symptoms were, although they “came up very quickly,” Energoatom added.
Russian troops have since gone to Belarus and Russia, Kramarenko said, adding that Ukrainian factory officials are now working to develop additional security measures to “avoid future events similar to those we had to happen.”
The power plant was completely shut down after the 1986 nuclear accident and the remaining work at the site is mainly focused on decontamination.
Kramarenko said it was unclear what the current radiation levels were near the site because there was no electricity at the moment.
“Until then, we will not understand the damage done,” he said.