Chernobyl, the mayor of Slavutych: “Area still under threat from the Russians”. PHOTO

36 years have passed since the Chernobyl disaster. The area of ​​the former nuclear power plant has returned to the center of the news with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kremlin troops occupied the area early in the conflict and then left it about a month later

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“We can’t know what’s in the Russians’ heads. We couldn’t expect them to take over nuclear power plants. And until the system changes in Moscow, our region will always be in danger. We are still under the threat of the invader. “, Was the alarm of Yurii Fomichev, mayor of Slavutych, satellite city of Chernobyl

Chernobyl and Pripyat from the disaster to today: photos of the sites of the nuclear accident

The Chernobyl site was captured by the Russians on February 24th. The fires caused by the bombing destroyed thousands of hectares of forest near the exclusion zone. Soldiers reportedly dug trenches in risk areas and passed through the forbidden zone of the Red Forest

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster, what happened on the night of April 26, 1986

Russian forces left the plant on April 1, leaving many safety concerns and taking away radioactive material, computers, and some plant workers. According to some sources, “the Russians touched nuclear waste with their bare hands” and have dangerous substances from research laboratories

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During the Russian occupation, according to the Slavutych town hall, the plant was left without electricity for 6 days and the technicians forced to work “even 600 hours straight” without shifts

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“The situation was very dangerous. This is nuclear terrorism,” said Tatyana Boyko, the mayor’s media adviser. The city was built, in full Soviet style, after the 1986 accident to house the inhabitants evacuated from Pripyat, which in turn became a ghost town due to the disaster

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Slavutych also suffered the Russian invasion, four men of the territorial defense died to protect it. And like many other mayors of Ukrainian cities in this war, Fomichev was also kidnapped for a few hours on March 26. “They didn’t even know who I was. I was taken into the woods with other prisoners, my hands tied behind my back, and they interrogated me.”

Before the invasion, the workers of Chernobyl, mainly engaged in control and maintenance, commuted by train, entering and exiting Belarus twice, a few kilometers away, for a twisted geography of borders. Now the town, surrounded by an endless pine forest and with a single bumpy and muddy road that connects it to the rest of Ukraine, is even more isolated.

“With the war and the bridge over the Dnieper destroyed, the workers of the plant are forced to make a long tour around the Kiev reservoir. It took less than an hour, now it takes 7”, explains the councilor.

Despite the night curfew imposed throughout the country, Slavutych did not give up remembering the victims of the Chernobyl disaster with a minute of silence at 12.23 am, the exact time of the explosion on April 26, 1986, in front of the memorial on the side of the square. “Now the situation is under control. We hope that the war will end soon and that we will be able to rebuild our country”, says the mayor