According to an aide to the Ukrainian office of the president, Russian troops have taken control of Chernobyl’s abandoned nuclear power plant, following fierce fighting near the exclusion zone around the nuclear plant.
According to Mykhailo Podolyak, an assistant to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian troops engaged in combat with Russian forces.
Russian forces entered the area from Belarus and took control of the now inoperable power plant.
According to Russian officials, the attack was part of a larger Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is the largest such invasion of a European country since World War II.
As of Thursday, Russian forces claimed to have damaged more than 70 military installations and 11 airfields (Feb. 24). Russia’s advance has apparently resulted in the takeover of Antonov International Airport, which is located on the suburbs of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
After the heavy fights in the Chernobyl zone, Russian troops had seized control over Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The personnel is taken hostage. pic.twitter.com/WpXWUDZ8Uh
— Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) February 24, 2022
More on the Chernobyl Power Plant
Podolyak was quoted by Reuters as saying it is difficult to assert the Chernobyl nuclear power station is secure, following a completely futile attack by the Russians.
“This is one of the most significant threats facing Europe today,” said the report’s author.
Since the catastrophic meltdown of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, vast sections of the Chernobyl restricted zone have been blocked off to the public as one of the world’s most hazardous locations, according to the World Health Organization.
It was in that year that two massive explosions at the facility blasted off the reactor’s 2,000-ton cap (1,800 metric tons), spreading radioactive fallout across a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) area, causing it to be closed for several months.
Humans were unable to live in the area for another 24,000 years after it was declared uninhabitable. The Russian occupying forces are attempting to wrest control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant from the Ukrainian government.
On Thursday morning, Zelensky posted on Twitter, “Our defenders are offering their lives so the catastrophe of 1986 would not be repeated.” This is an act of aggression against the entire European mainland.
ALERT 🚨 Spike in radiation levels recorded in the Ukraine’s Kiyv region near Chernobyl – NEXTA pic.twitter.com/4tFbOMoEhO
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) February 25, 2022
A consultant to the Ukrainian interior ministry expressed concern that fighting near the power plant could result in the disruption of nuclear waste and the spread of dangerous radioactive substances throughout Europe.
More Details on the Story
According to Anton Gerashchenko, an expert and former minister at the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, “the National Guardsmen who defend the collectors of hazardous nuclear radioactive waste are putting up a valiant struggle.”
“If the nuclear waste storage site is destroyed as a consequence of the occupiers’ artillery strikes, radioactive dust might spread across the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, and the EU countries!”
A total of approximately 7,500 additional Russian soldiers were positioned in the enclosure between December 2021 and February 2022.
The exclusion zone is located near Ukraine’s northern boundary with Russia’s ally, Belarus; it is the most direct route between that country and the Ukrainian capital.
