Russian Soldiers May Spread Radioactive Soil From Chernobyl To Belarus And Russia

Russian forces might be spreading contaminated soil they picked up during their occupation of Chernobyl, Ukrainian officials said.

Around 1,500 Russian troops and armored vehicles occupied the Chernobyl power plant, the site of the nuclear disaster back in 1986, as per Sky News.

Russian forces seized the site during the invasion of Ukraine, which started on Feb. 24. But Russia pulled back its forces Thursday and handed control of the area back to the Ukrainians.

However, Russian soldiers were reportedly ordered to dig defensive earthworks around Chernobyl before leaving the site.

"There were quite a lot of trenches, and they were digging trenches in many different places," Yavneh Kramarenko, the head of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management, told Sky News in an interview.

The "most dangerous area" the Russians dug in was the Red Forest, according to Kramarenko, named after the woodland’s trees that turned orange and died due to high radiation levels.

The radiation detecting equipment that the Russians reportedly used did not work since they were from the 1950s.

"It is foolish 100%. It's ridiculous because we know that they were not prepared. If they had been given clear guidelines they probably wouldn't have ended up exposed to radiation," Kramarenko said.

Around 10,000 Russian vehicles passed through a point in Chernobyl within five days to depart Ukraine, said former Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Shevchenko.

Ukrainian staff at Chernobyl feared the vehicles could have picked up contaminated soil excavated by the soldiers and carried it into Belarus. The soil might have also reached Russia and other parts of Ukraine.

Aside from the soil, Ukrainians were also worried about Russian-laid mines, which they claimed would be a challenge to clear in the radioactively poisoned ground of Chernobyl.

Russian service members suffered "acute radiation sickness" from occupying Chernobyl, and they were taken to a radiation center in Gomel, Belarus, for treatment.

At least one Russian soldier died from radiation poisoning after his unit camped in the Red Forest.