Ukraine-Russia situation: Russian forces seize Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scholar warns war could lead to nuclear leak – BBC News

“Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will never happen again,” President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted earlier.

“This is a declaration of war on the whole of Europe.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister also warned that Chernobyl could lead to “another ecological disaster”.

A 32-kilometer (19-mile) “exclusion zone” around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been largely devoid of life for 36 years after a nuclear reactor accident caused a massive explosion at the plant.

The other three reactors of the nuclear power plant were all shut down by 2000, and the nuclear power plant has since been decommissioned.

After the 1986 nuclear leak, nuclear radiation in the region has been at high risk levels. A 2019 HBO miniseries called “Chernobyl” made the place a tourist hotspot.

Russian troops reportedly entered the quarantine zone before crossing the border into Ukraine on Thursday.

The White House said it had received reports that Chernobyl staff were taken hostage by Russian troops on the spot.

It was part of a “special military operation” by Russian President Vladimir Putin in neighboring countries.

Chernobyl, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, may have served as a route for invading forces into Kiev.

Samantha Turner, a security affairs scholar at the Truman National Security Project, said control of the area was not “combat-winning” but could give the Russian military a path to Corridor of the Dnipro River.

The river runs north to Belarus, whose president has sided with Putin, and to Kiev to the south.

“This is an important part of opening up different paths for them to move troops and control strategic locations,” she said.

She warned that while the area is uninhabited and the nuclear power plant is no longer in operation, any intense fighting in the strip could lead to a nuclear leak.

However, Claire Corkhill, a professor of radioactive waste at the University of Sheffield, points out that Russians are among the most experienced people in the world with nuclear energy operations.

Kirkhill has been involved in the international cleanup of Chernobyl for the past six years, and even visited the site three times.

One of the most successful of these collaborative efforts is the recent construction of a 32,000-ton dome over a nuclear reactor. It was built by more than 30 countries at a cost of $1.5 billion (£1.1 billion).

Kirkhill now worries that the invasion of Ukraine will effectively disrupt those operations.

“It’s been 30 years since the accident and we still haven’t cleaned up everything,” she told the BBC. “This is probably a project that will take another 50 years.”

“If people don’t act properly on this facility and don’t push the decommissioning process, it could be a very big problem.”

The 1986 explosion is often linked to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union five years later.

Dr Taras Kuzio, a researcher at the Henry Jackson Society in the UK, said the capture of Chernobyl would therefore be seen as the best symbol of Putin’s victory.

“Putin’s personal mentality is that he can’t let go of the collapse of the Soviet Union 30 years ago, and it all started after Chernobyl,” Dr. Kuzio said. He is of Ukrainian descent.

He worries that while Putin is merely fending off the West with the threat of nuclear weapons, he is acting like a “sociopath” and his actions should be closely watched.

“What he has done in Ukraine is unprecedented. How can we assume he won’t do anything else?” he said.