Ukraine says Russian forces who occupied the former Chernobyl nuclear plant stole radioactive substances from research laboratories that could potentially kill them.
Ukraine’s State Agency for Managing the Exclusion Zone said on Facebook that Russian troops entered a storage area of the Ecocentre research base and stole 133 highly radioactive substances.
“Even a small part of this activity is deadly if handled unprofessionally,” the agency said, adding “the location of the stolen substances is currently unknown.”
The BBC has not been able to confirm this independently.
Earlier this week Ukraine’s energy minister German Gulashchenko said Russian soldiers exposed themselves to a “shocking” amount of nuclear radiation, saying some of them may have less than a year to live.
“They dug bare soil contaminated with radiation, collected radioactive sand in bags for fortification, breathed this dust,” Gulashchenko said on Facebook on Friday after visiting the exclusion zone.
The BBC’s Yogita Limaye was among the first journalists to look inside the former nuclear power plant since the Russians left
source:bbc