A general view shows the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure over the old sarcophagus covering the damaged fourth reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in Chernobyl, Ukraine November 22, 2018. — Reuters file pic
APRIL 1 — Some Russian troops were still in the “exclusion zone” around the Chernobyl nuclear power station this morning, a day after ending their occupation of the plant itself, a Ukrainian official said.
Russian forces occupied the defunct power station north of Kyiv soon after invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 but Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said yesterday they had left the plant and were heading towards the border with Belarus.
“Russians were seen in the exclusion zone this morning,” Yevhen Kramarenko, who heads the agency in charge of the exclusion zone, said in televised comments today.
He did not say what the troops were doing or where they might be headed. He added that no Russian troops had been seen on the territory of the decommissioned nuclear power plant.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian authorities on the reported withdrawal.
The exclusion zone was established because of high radiation levels in the area after a nuclear reactor exploded at the plant in April 1986 in the world’s worst nuclear accident. The zone initially stretched 30 km (19 miles) from the plant in all directions but was later extended further.
The plant’s Ukrainian staff continued to oversee the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel at Chernobyl while it was occupied by Russian forces, and also supervised the concrete-encased remains of the reactor that exploded in 1986.
Energoatom suggested yesterday that the Russian forces had left because of concerns about radiation levels and that they had taken with them an unspecified number of members of Ukraine’s National Guard who had been held captive since Feb. 24. The information could not immediately be verified. — Reuters