The Ukrainian authorities are failing to restore radioactivity surveillance facilities in Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, where Russian soldiers created an underground network when they occupied the site of the worst nuclear accident ever occurred.
“The system for monitoring the level of radioactivity in the prohibited zone is still not working,” said Evguen Kramarenko, head of the state agency responsible for the prohibited zone in Chernobyl.
“The servers that handle this information disappeared (...) we cannot say whether (the area) is completely secure,” he added during a videoconference followed by AFP.
“Until electricity is restored and employees do not have authorization from the armed forces to access the radioactivity checkpoints, we cannot assess the damage suffered,” he said.
Kramarenko further assured that “the Russian occupiers had dug in multiple places” in Chernobyl, where the nuclear accident took place in April 1986.
“They buried heavy equipment, created trenches and even set up underground kitchens, tents and fortifications,” he said. “One of these fortifications is located near a place for the temporary disposal of radioactive waste,” he warned.
The Russian army had seized the nuclear power plant on the first day of Moscow's offensive against Ukraine, on February 24.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, he withdrew at the end of March.
Russian soldiers “very soon” will feel the effects of radiation, Kramarenko warned. “Some within a month, others within years,” he said.
Developing note...
(with information from AFP)
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