On February 24, the first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the invaders entered Chernobyl zone from Belarus side.
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Those "men in black" climbed out of all the holes. Our military was ready. They have already taken their positions, they were ready to fight,” the station employee recalled.
For more than a month, the Russian occupiers kept the Chernobyl employees under siege. Some employees performed their duties for more than 600 hours.
Due to hostilities in early March, the station was completely de-energized. The radiation monitoring system did not work, and the staff was completely out of touch.
There was a serious threat of release of radioactive substances into the environment. After all, about 20,000 spent fuel assemblies are stored at the spent nuclear fuel storage facility. They cannot be cooled without electricity.
The fire extinguishing system also did not work. Therefore, if a shell suddenly hit the station and a fire broke out, it would not be possible to put it out.
The State Inspectorate for Nuclear Regulation recorded a 20-fold increase in gamma radiation levels in the region on February 24. One of the reasons is that military equipment passing through the exclusion zone lifted polluted dust into the air.
On the 36th day of the war, the invaders finally left the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the nearby town of Slavutych. So, fortunately, the worst-case scenario was avoided – a repeat of the tragedy in Chernobyl.
By the way, the cameras recorded how the Russians dug trenches in the "Red Forest", which is most affected by radiation.
And many other invaders were irradiated and after their termination went immediately to the Center for Radiation Medicine in Gomel, Belarus.