During their occupation at the nuclear power plant of Chernobyl, Russian soldiers have not only been busy digging trenches in a heavily contaminated area such as the forest surrounding the plant, but have also committed numerous actions that are very dangerous for their safety, such as touching radioactive materials with their bare hands. The story was told by the plant’s Ukrainian chief engineer, Valeriy Simyonov, to the New York Times: A Russian soldier belonging to a chemical, biological and nuclear protection unit took a “cobalt60 source with his bare hands” at a nuclear waste disposal site ” by exposing himself to such radiation that can make the Geiger counter squirt. It is not clear, he added, what happened to the man.
“Less than a year old”
As we have seen in Giornale.it, Chernoybl already has levels of radiation higher than normal, but also dust and looting: This is how the power plant presented itself under the control of the Ukrainians. CNN had exclusive access and was able to see the aftermath of the Russian attack as well as the actions of Vladimir Putin’s soldiers. A striking example concerns a room where Russian soldiers lived during the occupation of the nuclear power plant: the detector the radiation was activated immediately, with a “piercing” beep. “The Russian soldiers who dug the trenches near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant are not older than a year,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Twitter, according to the Kyiv Defense Ministry.
The trenches in the Red Forest
As we delved into InsideOver, not only did the Russian soldiers run the risk of being exposed to radiation, but a video published in the Ukrainian media Unan shows the trenches dug by the Moscow troops in the “forest Red“(from the name that many plantations took after the nuclear disaster), the sarcophagus of reactor number 4 in the background, the signs of a war that has also passed in these parts, from regions where history marginalized, silent and crystallized turned 36. Apparently, by digging trenches, they were moving contaminated land and not even respecting basic safety protocols, as reported by the Ukrainians. “Huge crap. What you see here are trenches dug in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, documented by a drone flying overhead Video posted on Twitter announced by the courier.
The lack of electricity
So, let’s not forget that at the beginning of the conflict, the lack of electricity for the operation of the nuclear power plant, with all the associated risks, was the order of the day. “Without electricity, the situation would have been catastrophic,” says Oleksandr Lobada, BBC security officer, “because it could have been released of radioactive material”. The alarm was raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (Aiea), which had denounced the disruption of data transmission by the systems allowing remote control of the plant’s nuclear material. ‘Ukrainian state company, the lack of energy would have the cooling of spent nuclear fuel prevented, which could lead to the release of radioactive substances. If the temperature in the cooling tanks rises was Energoatom’s warning it will be able to detect the formation of steam and the release of radioactive substances into the environment, which the wind will carry to other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Europe. Luckily, the distress then abated, but after the news of the last few hours, the Chernobyl affair is unfortunately still highly topical.