21:09, 1 Apr 2022
A RUSSIAN soldier has died of radiation sickness from the destroyed Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
He was part of the team that captured the site, 65 miles north of Ukraine's capital Kyiv, in the opening days of the war.
The soldier's unit had been camping in the toxic Red Forest, a highly radioactive area around the nuclear plant.
He is one of the dozens of Russian soldiers who are believed to have fallen ill from radiation sickness after Putin's army occupied the 20-mile exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl.
The zone remains so dangerous that people are banned from living there, more than 35 years after the deadly nuclear tragedy.
However, Russian troops drove their trucks along the dirt roads, kicking up radioactive dust, and dug trenches in the mud in the Red Forest
The forest earned its name because of the colour it turned after soaking up radiation after the nuclear explosion.
Many Russian troops have since been forced to retreat to neighbouring Belarus, five weeks after the start of the bungled invasion.
It comes a day after Putin's soldiers formally gave up Chernobyl, five weeks after taking control of the plant.
The site of the 1986 nuclear tragedy in northern Ukraine was captured in the opening days of the war, sparking fears of a major radioactive disaster as a result of heavy fighting around the plant.
In a statement, Ukraine's Defence Ministry said: "The Russian occupiers have left the Chernobyl nuclear power plant."
It said the Russians had withdrawn due to "losses caused by the Ukrainian army and radiation exposure".
Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom said on Thursday that all of the "outsiders" who had been occupying the plant have left.
It released a letter signed by the Russian National Guard in which custody of Chernobyl was handed back to Ukraine.
Earlier, it said that some Russian forces had set off towards the Belarusian border, suggesting that they had been driven away by radiation concerns.
"This morning, the invaders announced their intentions to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant," Energoatom said in a statement.
It also confirmed reports that Russian troops had dug trenches in the most contaminated part of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, the Red Forest, receiving "significant doses" of radiation.
Seven buses with Russian soldiers suffering from acute radiation syndrome arrived in a hospital in Belarus from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Workers at the plant were quoted as saying that some of the Russian soldiers had no idea they were in a radiation zone.
Although the Chernobyl disaster is notorious in the West and was the subject of an award-winning BBC drama in 2019, it is less well-known in Russia.
It is thought to be unlikely that the Russian soldiers, many of whom are conscripts from rural parts of the country, would have known anything about the dangers they were putting themselves in by occupying the plant.
Russia's commanders may not have known about the Red Forest's radiation, or they may not have cared.
Their troops were reportedly not issued with radiation suits and did not even know they were going to invade Ukraine on February 24.
Russia's military, however, claimed that radiation levels at the plant itself had stayed within a normal range while the site was under Russian control.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement that it couldn't confirm these reports.
It is the latest sign of blunders at the top level of Russia's military.
Russia is believed to have lost more than 17,000 soldiers and thousands of pieces of equipment since the start of the war.
Pentagon sources earlier reported on Wednesday that Russian forces are "walking away" from the Chernobyl facility and heading north towards Belarus.
"Chernobyl is [an] area where they [the Russians] are beginning to reposition some of their troops," the official said.
They added that the Russians are "leaving, walking away from the Chernobyl facility and moving into Belarus".
The official went on: "We think that they are leaving, I can't tell you that they're all gone."
Earlier on Wednesday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said the US had seen Russian troops around the capital Kyiv moving north toward or into Belarus.
He was quick to stress that the US didn't see this as a withdrawal, but as an attempt by Russia to resupply, refit, and then reposition its troops.
"We don't know exactly where these troops are going to go," he said.
But speaking on CNN and Fox Business, he noted that Russia has talked about prioritising the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
Kirby also said that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have continued to try to speak with their Russian counterparts but they have not answered and they have not replied with a willingness to do so.
"We don't know exactly where these troops are going to go," he said.
But speaking on CNN and Fox Business, he noted that Russia has talked about prioritising the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
Kirby also said that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have continued to try to speak with their Russian counterparts but they have not answered and they have not replied with a willingness to do so.
Earlier this week, it was reported that radioactive material was stolen from the site of the damaged nuclear power station.
In the wrong hands, there is a low risk the materials could be used to create a "dirty bomb", military experts told Live Science.
A dirty bomb is a device that combines radioactive material with a conventional explosive.
The looters also swiped radioactive isotopes from a lab used to monitor radiation levels at the site.
Ukraine's State Agency blamed Russian troops for stealing "unstable" nuclear samples from Chernobyl after ransacking a £5m lab.
Putin's men are believed to have then destroyed the lab which was full of nuclear waste and located in the radioactive exclusion zone.
The agency - responsible for the site of the world’s worst nuclear meltdown in 1986 - said the stolen radionuclides are "highly active".
It said it hoped Russian troops "will harm themselves and not the civilized world" with their lethal loot from the November Central Analytical Laboratory.
In a statement, the agency said: "The laboratory contained highly active samples and samples of radionuclides that are now in the hands of the enemy."
Shelling has continued despite the apparent scaling down of Russian troops, with Putin's forces bombarding the outskirts of Kyiv and the besieged northern city of Chernihiv.
DISASTER FEARS
Earlier this month, Ukraine lost all contact with Chernobyl sparking fears of a potentially dangerous loss of power at the site.
Soldiers were said to be fighting close to the giant sarcophagus sealing in the damaged reactor.
Following the Russian takeover, the facility lost power, and backup generators with just two days of fuel were left to run the complex.
Chernobyl workers were taken hostage by Russian troops, presenting another major risk to the day-to-day running of the site.
With the condition of the former power plant's nuclear storage facilities "unknown" at the time, there were fears of a dangerous radiation leak following heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
A day after the takeover, Chernobyl radiation levels spiked, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Ukraine's State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate blamed the spike on a "disturbance" caused by Russian forces rolling through.
It said the "large amount of heavy military equipment through the exclusion zone" had unsettled the topsoil at the sensitive site.
Officials warned it had resulted in "the release of contaminated radioactive dust into the air", but said the rise was so far "insignificant".
Just last week, wildfires around Chernobyl sparked by Russian shelling scorched 25,000 acres of forest.
The April 1986 reactor explosion and fire killed at least 31 and spewed a huge cloud of radioactive particles into the air.
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