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L. Coyote

(51,129 posts)
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 02:15 PM Mar 2022

Russian Soldiers Leave Chernobyl With Radiation Illness, Energy Company Says

https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vw8x/russian-soldiers-leave-chernobyl-with-radiation-illness-energy-company-says

After more than a month of occupying the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, a number of Russian troops have left the exclusion zone, Ukrainian officials are reporting.

Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-run nuclear energy operator, reported Thursday that two columns of Russian troops had left the site and were heading toward the Belarusian border.

“This morning, the invaders announced their intentions to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to Ukrainian station personnel,” a statement posted to the Energoatom Telegram channel reads.

Their departure marks a milestone in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Troops first entered the 1,000-kilometer exclusion zone surrounding the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster on Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion, immediately igniting concerns about the risk of a second similar disaster and the broader environmental consequences of dredged-up nuclear waste. The Ukraine government reported throughout Russia’s invasion that staff at the plant were being held hostage, unable to rotate positions and follow typical safety protocol. At one point, the power plant was brought entirely offline; at another, officials reported that they had lost all contact with staff there.

Though the plant is no longer operating, it requires a team of staff to manage the maintenance of nuclear waste. Still, nuclear experts cautioned that the risk of a second Chernobyl disaster on the same scale as the first was essentially nil.

..............



14 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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ffr

(22,665 posts)
1. FFS! Did they think an abaondoned city was staged?
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 02:18 PM
Mar 2022

Digging trenches in a fallout zone is a bad idea. Hanging about in a fallout zone is a bad idea.

Congratulations. Your DNA has been permanently altered for the rest of your lives. Sue Putin.

Lovie777

(12,226 posts)
2. Of course I'm reading different stories of this .......
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 02:19 PM
Mar 2022

but I tend to believe more of this tweet that others. I do believe they did get radiation illness to what extent unknown but it doesn't sound very good for them. Plus what about the civilians that live in and around the area?

Leghorn21

(13,524 posts)
4. Same here, -- waiting for good, 100% confirmation -- various posters I'm reading say, hell no,
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 02:29 PM
Mar 2022

they can’t get sick that quickly, while other say oh yes they can!! Some kids have been there a month while digging trenches and riding around with no protection whatsoever, so, YEAH, they can get sick, absolutely—

One would think older troops would have a tiny clue about Chernobyl and hence WARN the kids?!? APPARENTLY NOT…looks like it’s every man for himself in pute’s shitty little army

BumRushDaShow

(128,719 posts)
14. This was also done in a LBN post early this morning with AP as the source
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 06:16 PM
Mar 2022
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142896892

And the below is the link that now has an update of a full Russian soldier withdrawal from the Cheronbyl facility.

Russians leaving Chernobyl as fighting rages elsewhere

By NEBI QENA and YURAS KARMANAU 55 minutes ago


KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops handed control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant back to the Ukrainians and began leaving the heavily contaminated site more than a month after taking it over, authorities said Thursday, as fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts. Ukraine’s state power company, Energoatom, said the pullout at Chernobyl came after soldiers received “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches in the forest in the exclusion zone around the closed plant. But there was no independent confirmation of that.

The withdrawal took place amid growing indications the Kremlin is using talk of de-escalation in Ukraine as cover while regrouping, resupplying its forces and redeploying them for a stepped-up offensive in the eastern part of the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is seeing “a buildup of Russian forces for new strikes on the Donbas, and we are preparing for that.” Meanwhile, a convoy of buses headed to Mariupol in another bid to evacuate people from the besieged port city after the Russian military agreed to a limited cease-fire in the area.

And a new round of talks was scheduled for Friday, five weeks into the war that has left thousands dead and driven 4 million Ukrainians from the country. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it had been informed by Ukraine that the Russian forces at the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster had transferred control of it in writing to the Ukrainians. Ukraine reported that three convoys of Russian forces had left toward Belarus, while the remaining troops were apparently planning to leave too, the agency said.Energoatom gave no details on the condition of the soldiers it said were exposed to radiation and did not say how many were affected.

There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin, and the IAEA said it had not been able to confirm the reports of Russian troops receiving high doses. It said it was seeking more information.Russian forces seized the Chernobyl site in the opening stages of the Feb. 24 invasion, raising fears that they would cause damage or disruption that could spread radiation. The workforce at the site oversees the safe storage of spent fuel rods and the concrete-entombed ruins of the reactor that exploded in 1986.

(snip)

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-europe-united-states-nato-5863ad1d740cdd04ba42a25de0d31449


Even just driving "off road/off path" - particularly with the types of vehicles they had (like tanks and other military personnel trucks, etc) would be enough to stir up the soil and cause the radioactive dirt to go airborne. There's no confirmation as to whether they "dug trenches" out in the forest area within the exclusion zone to fortify the positions, but if they did,

getagrip_already

(14,682 posts)
6. terrible article/headline.....
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 02:56 PM
Mar 2022

Nowhere does it say that troops are actually sick. They just talk about vaguely. The word illness only appears twice, and f those is in the headline.

Who is reporting it? What are they saying?

 

darosky

(16 posts)
12. Why does the word have to appear more than once in the body?
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 05:19 PM
Mar 2022

I don't get why they have to repeat themself.

getagrip_already

(14,682 posts)
13. they don't...
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 05:38 PM
Mar 2022

but they need to explain the reference. They didn't do that.

this is all they say:

“So it is not surprising that the occupiers received significant doses of radiation and panicked at the first sign of illness. And it manifested itself very quickly.


No where do they state that occupiers received significant doses of radiation. Nowhere do the discuss panic among the ranks. Nowhere do they describe the manifestation of illness.

That is literally all they say. It's like some editor ripped out the guts of the story and only left a comment without any foundation.

The rest of the story is unrelated to illness, except for this one floating comment, not attributed to anything of substance.

It could have been a great story. It's just a bad one wrt the headline.

Towlie

(5,324 posts)
9. Duh! You ended your excerpt just before it got to the claim in your thread title.
Thu Mar 31, 2022, 04:38 PM
Mar 2022

Your post would have made more sense if you had included the part about radiation illness, since that's the theme of your thread title.

The article continues:

However, Ukraine claims that Russian forces suffered a dose of radiation due to building fortifications in the highly contaminated Red Forest area of the Exclusion Zone.

“It should be noted that the information about fortifications and trenches that the racists built right in the Red Forest, the most polluted in the entire Exclusion Zone, was also confirmed,” the agency stated on Telegram. “So it is not surprising that the occupiers received significant doses of radiation and panicked at the first sign of illness. And it manifested itself very quickly. As a result, almost a riot broke out among the military, and they began to gather from there.”
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