The facts are known. Putin’s Russians break into a storage area of the Ecocentre research base in Chernobyl and steal 133 highly radioactive substances. For Ukraine’s state agency for managing the restricted zone, “even a small proportion of these substances are lethal if mishandled,” adding that “the location where the stolen substances were taken is currently unknown.” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko goes further by arguing that the soldiers have since February 24th to the March 31 if they stayed there, in the “Red Forest” around the Chernobyl power plant, where the greatest nuclear catastrophe in history took place, they would have barely a year to live. In this area “unusually high radiation levels were measured, which were exceeded 1015 times the normal standards of the external radiation index “. However, the indication of the year of life cannot be considered reliable.
For Francesca Gorzanelli, who knows Chernobyl well and is a photojournalist by profession, “such a judgment can be made by a doctor after a thorough examination of the issues involved. And these statements were issued neither by doctors nor by doctors who would have examined these soldiers”. Galushchenko even spoke of a slow death from radioactive substances, stressing that even military equipment was being contaminated. “The ignorance of Russian soldiers is shocking,” concluded he.”While digging trenches and building outposts in the Red Forest is Darwin’s reward, it is not fatal. Radiation levels in the area, even where they are highest, are absolutely nonfatal. Apparently they aren’t even.” beneficial,” continues Gorzanelli, who then tries to explain on his Facebook page also the reason that prompted the Russians to take away well 133 radioactive substances from Chernobyl. Because? What were they looking for? According to the photojournalist, this was “a priority for Putin” because “there must be proven evidence that Ukraine, in alliance with NATO, is producing nuclear and chemical weapons.”
Archive cover photo: EPA / OLEG PETRASYUK
