Russian forces entered a city near Chernobyl and detained the mayor, officials say.
Russian forces have entered the city of Slavutych near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, seized its hospital and briefly detained the city’s mayor, a local official said on Saturday.
The city, which was built for evacuees from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, is now home to many of the plant’s workers. Russian forces captured the plant and the exclusion zone around it early in the invasion of Ukraine last month, and the International Atomic Energy Agency warned on Friday that recent intense fighting in the area could jeopardize the workers’ ability to keep the defunct plant safe.
There were reports on Friday that Slavutych, which had a population of about 25,000 before the war, had been shelled by Russian forces who had begun to enter the area. It was not clear on Saturday whether Russian forces fully controlled the city, which is near the Belarusian border in an area that they have mostly held.
Russian forces have been met with protests and resistance from residents of the city, according to the official, Oleksandr Pavliuk, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-forces-entered-a-city-near-chernobyl-and-detained-the-mayor-officials-say/ar-AAVwhTF