WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Russian and Ukrainian forces fought on Thursday for control of Chernobyl, the still radioactive site of the world's worst nuclear accident and a factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted before the defunct nuclear power plant, scene of a deadly fire and explosion in 1986, was captured by Russian forces.
Russian forces have gained control of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine, and reports of firefights at the site have led to concerns about the release of radioactive material from the plant, which experienced a catastrophic meltdown in 1986. But physicists say the risk of radioactive emissions as a result of accidental damage is minimal.
Nika Melkozerova, a journalist with NewVoiceUkraine, reports that Russian forces have reached Chernobyl where they have met “fierce resistance” from Ukrainian soldiers. A researcher who monitors the ongoing emission of neutrons from the reactor to gauge safety spoke to New Scientist on 24 February, and says that staff at Chernobyl were safe. “The entrance of [Chernobyl is] controlled by Russians. They do not enter inside,” he says.
Jack Keane, a former chief of the U.S. Army staff, said Chernobyl "doesn’t have any military significance" but sits on the shortest route from Belarus to Kyiv, the target of a Russian "decapitation" strategy to oust the Ukrainian government.
Keane called the route one of four "axes" Russian forces used to invade Ukraine, including a second vector from Belarus, an advance south into the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and a push north out of Russian-controlled Crimea to the city of Kherson.
The explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 brought down walls and sealed off many rooms and corridors. Tonnes of fissile material from the interior of a reactor were strewn throughout the facility and the heat it generated melted sand from the reactor walls with concrete and steel to form lava-like and intensely radioactive substances that oozed into lower floors.
Merk believes that a brief interruption in monitoring is unlikely to cause issues. “It’s a stabilised problem. So I think that if the scientists are not observing this for the next several months, which is in my view a reasonable timescale, I don’t think that there are really big risks. Yes, in the long term, it’s important to observe what’s going on. It’s important to have early warnings, but I think some of the some of the information may even be remotely accessible. Nothing will run away in the short term.”
The answer is geography: Chernobyl sits on the shortest route from Belarus to Kyiv, Ukrainian's capital, and so runs along a logical line of attack for the Russian forces invading Ukraine.
In seizing Chernobyl, Western military analysts said Russia was simply using the fastest invasion route from Belarus, an ally of Moscow and a staging ground for Russian troops, to Kyiv.
"It was the quickest way from A to B," said James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.
Acton said Ukraine's other reactors are not in exclusion zones and they contain nuclear fuel that is a lot more radioactive. "The risks of fighting around them are significantly higher.
Acton said Russia's capture of Chernobyl on Thursday was not to protect it from further damage, saying Ukraine's four active nuclear power plants present a greater risk than Chernobyl, which sits within a vast "exclusion zone" roughly the size of Luxembourg.
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