With Russian forces withdrawing from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site, five weeks following its capture, the International Atomic Energy Agency is investigating reports that some soldiers were suffering from radiation poisoning, says newspaper The New York Times.
The newspaper reported that the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, met Friday, at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, with senior government officials from Ukraine and Russia.
Most of the Russian forces occupying the Chernobyl nuclear plant have left the plant for the Belarus border, with only a few remaining on the grounds of the crippled plant, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatum said last Thursday.
In a statement, the Ukrainian company said: “The occupiers who seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and other facilities in the restricted area set off in two lines towards the Ukrainian border.”
It added that Russian forces also withdrew from the nearby town of Slavutych, home to Ukrainians working at Chernobyl.
The International Atomic Energy Agency also said, in a statement, that three convoys of soldiers who left the site were heading north towards Belarus.
The agency confirmed that it was investigating local news reports that the reason for the departure of the Russian soldiers was due to the exposure of some of them to high levels of radiation there, as quoted by the New York Times.
The agency also said it would send experts and safety and security supplies to Ukraine to ensure safety at Chernobyl, where the worst nuclear disaster in history occurred in 1986.
And the agency said, in a statement, that it “is in close consultations with the Ukrainian authorities regarding sending the first aid and support mission from the agency to (Chernobyl) in the next few days,” noting that Ukraine “assumes” that the remaining Russian forces are preparing to leave.
However, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense (Pentagon), John Kirby, cast doubt on reports that Russian soldiers suffered from radiation sickness.
At a press conference last Thursday, he said that “at this early stage” the troop movement appears to have been “part of this larger effort to replenish and resupply and not necessarily because of health risks or some kind of emergency or crisis at Chernobyl.”
Russia captured the plant early in its invasion of Ukraine, raising concerns regarding radiation levels and protection at the site, where spent fuel still needs round-the-clock maintenance.
