Chernobyl staff say Russian troops spread radiation

RUSSIAN soldiers who seized control of Chernobyl spread radioactive material around the plant, its staff have said, while one soldier even picked up a source of radiation with his bare hands.

Staff at the power plant, site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters, have described how Russian soldiers, who seized the plant for a month in late February, may have been exposed to potentially harmful doses of radiation, which brings a high risk of cancer and other health issues, even decades later.

Ukrainian military drone footage revealed the soldiers dug trenches in the nearby Red Forest, to this day one of the most radioactive places on Earth.

Journalists found food wrappings, military gear and even a blackened cooking pot, suggesting the Russian troops spent an extended period in the trenches. A military ration box exhibited radiation levels 50 times above naturally occurring values, CNN reported.

Staff at Chernobyl said the Russian soldiers contaminated the power plant with radioactive material they carried back from the forest on their shoes. The radiation levels at the plant increased slightly as a result, they said.

In one particularly ill-advised incident, a Russian soldier handled a source of cobalt-60 at one waste storage site with his bare hands, said Valeriy Simyonov, the site’s chief safety engineer.

He exposed himself to so much radiation in a few seconds that it went off the scales of a Geiger counter, he said. It was not clear what happened to the soldier.

While Chernobyl is not an active power station, staff maintain the site of the 1986 nuclear accident to avoid further radiation leaks.

Russian forces surrounded the area in late February, taking Ukrainian soldiers guarding the plant hostage. They held the plant for a month but the site is now back under Ukraine’s control.