“It was confirmed that the occupiers who seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and other facilities in the exclusion zone were marching in two columns towards Ukraine’s border with the Republic of Belarus,” Energoatom said in a statement published on Telegram.
On April 26, 1986, an explosion ruptured reactor #4 at Chernobyl, killing 30 people instantly. Countless others died in the years that followed as a result of exposure to radiation.
At the end of February, in the first week of the war, the plant and its surrounding area fell into the hands of Russian troops.
On Thursday, Russian troops announced their intention to leave Ukrainian personnel and hand over control, Energoatom said.
It also released a copy of a formal letter allegedly signed by a representative of the Russian National Guard, a representative of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom and a shift manager at the Chernobyl plant, headlined: “The act of acceptance and transfer of protection of the nuclear power plant Chernobyl.”
The letter states that “the administration of the protected facility makes no claims against the troops of the National Guard of the Russian Federation.”
Energoatom’s Telegram statement said that a small number of “Rashists” – a Ukrainian swear word for Russians combining the words “fascist” and “racist” – remained on the station.
“It should be noted that the information about fortifications and trenches that the Rashists built right in the Red Forest, the most polluted in the entire Exclusion Zone, has also been confirmed,” Energoatom said.
“It is therefore not surprising that the occupiers received significant doses of radiation and panicked at the first sign of illness. And it manifested very quickly. As a result, a riot almost broke out among the military, and they began to gather from there,” the statement continued.
CNN could not immediately verify these claims.
Separately, Energoatom said there were reports that a column of Russian soldiers who had encircled the town of Slavutych, which had been built to house Chernobyl workers, was also forming up to retreat to Belarus.
The US is also seeing Russian forces “pulling down” from Chernobyl and from north and north-west of Kyiv, a senior US defense official told reporters on Thursday.
The US believes Russian forces have likely “abandoned” Hostomel Airport, also known as Antonov International Airport, northwest of Kyiv, the official said.
The Russian occupation of Chernobyl sparked fears that safety standards inside the exclusion zone could be compromised.
A week ago, the Ukrainian government said Russian forces looted and destroyed a laboratory near the abandoned nuclear power plant that was used to monitor radioactive waste.
According to Mason Clark, senior Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, Russia targeted civilian infrastructure such as power plants during its invasion of Ukraine.
“This is most evident in Mariupol, where they are very deliberately targeting water stations and power supplies and internet towers and cell towers and the like, and a very deliberate attempt to make it difficult for the defenders to hold them, try to force them to surrender,” Clark told CNN in mid-March.
CNN’s Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.