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Of concern are reports from Ukrainian officials that hundreds of Russian soldiers found at the site of the nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, have been contaminated with radiation.
According to the British newspaper Daily Mail, the Russian soldiers are undergoing special treatment in the Belarusian city of Gomel.
Workers at Ukraine's nuclear plant claimed that the Russian soldiers lacked proper equipment and their stay in the wider area was "suicide".
According to a Belarusian news channel, at least seven buses carrying Russian soldiers arrived in the town of Gomel this week where a medical centre specialising in treating those contaminated with radiation is located.
Yaroslav Yemelyanenko, an official at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the Chernobyl exclusion zone, claims that Russian soldiers are being treated after being exposed to radiation.
He claimed that the soldiers fell ill because they did not follow the "rules of protection in force at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and visited the highly toxic zone known as the "Red Forest."
The Russian soldiers inhaled "radiation dust" after travelling to this zone.
A few days ago, Chernobyl workers said they saw Russian tanks and other armored vehicles moving through the "Red Forest," which is the most radioactively contaminated part of the zone around the nuclear power plant.
The vast area around Chernobyl is a restricted zone to anyone not working there but the "Red Forest" is considered so contaminated that even workers at the nuclear power plant are not allowed to visit it without special permission.
Meanwhile, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will set up online monitoring missions to Ukraine's Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plants, the head of the Ukrainian company that operates the units announced today.
Energoatom CEO Petro Kotin even urged the IAEA to use its influence to ensure that the Russians do not interfere in the operation of the nuclear plants, which have been occupied by Russian forces since the invasion of Ukraine last month.
Source: Proto Thema
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