Russian soldiers who dug trenches in Chernobyl “must expect radiation sickness in varying degrees of severity”. “Abnormal levels of radiation have been recorded” in the exclusion zone areas around the Ukrainian power plant where Russian troops dug trenches and tried to build fortifications, says Petro Kotin, head of Ukrainian state nuclear operator Energoatom, after a site survey. of the occupied areas, the area of the so-called Red Forest – and then abandoned by the Russians around the nuclear power plant that was the scene of the 1986 accident.
The levels of radiation are 10-15 times higher than normal, and those of internal radiation, received following contact with the surface soil, can be even 160 times higher than normal. “So all the occupants who have been base and trenches in the Red Forest for nearly 30 days – he later added referring to the Russians – must expect radiation-induced diseases in varying degrees of severity.”
In another statement, Energoatom announced that Russian troops “also ransacked and destroyed the offices of the laboratories for the nuclear safety institute: they took away computers, office equipment, destroyed laboratory materials and ransacked garages with the vehicles used by scientists to travel to the testing sites “.