Heavy fighting breaks out near Chernobyl nuclear waste storage
Russian troops have entered an area near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister has claimed.
The Ukrainian President believes Vladimir Putin’s forces are attempting to capture the plant itself as fears grow of a nuclear catastrophe.
Volodymr Zelensky said his troops are fighting to prevent a repeat of the radioactive disaster which struck the area in 1986.
‘Russian occupying forces are trying to take over the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Our soldiers are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 does not happen again,’ he tweeted.
Mr Zelensky branded the attack ‘a declaration of war on all of Europe’.
Fighting is already believed to be raging in Chernobyl, near the facility which went into meltdown nearly 40 years ago.
Forces from Russia are said to have entered the area from the Belarusian side.
There are fears that the clashes could disturb a nuclear waste store or other dangerous substances left in the exclusion zone.
Earlier today, an airstrike hit an area near Chernobyl around 26 miles from the exclusion zone.
It comes after a security expert in Kyiv claimed that an accidental hit on a reactor would pose a risk of radioactive pollution to Europe.
Radiation could contaminate air, soil and waterways, affecting Russia and much of Europe the head of safety analysis at the State Scientific and Technical Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Safety, Dmytro Gumenyuk, told i news.
Chernobyl was the scene of the worst nuclear disaster in history, and an exclusion zone has been set up around the area ever since.
The reactor spewed radioactive waste across Europe from around 80 miles north Kyiv.
The exploded reactor has been covered by a protective shelter to prevent radiation leak and the entire plant has been decommissioned.
Elsewhere, parts of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region were no longer under Kyiv’s control, the regional administration said, as Russian forces attacked by land, sea and air.
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Russian forces have launched an attack on Ukraine, with swathes of the country – including capital city Kyiv, bring hit by rocket strikes.
Troops from Russia crossed the Crimea border into Ukraine in the early hours of February 24 after President Vladimir Putin gave the order for his invasion to begin.
Boris Johnson launched a scathing attack on the Russian leader as he unveiled a package of sanctions against the country, saying said Putin ‘will never be able to cleanse the blood of Ukraine from his hands’ and will be ‘condemned’ in the eyes of history.
He said President Vladimir Putin’s regime would be condemned to ‘pariah status’ after unleashing its ‘tidal wave of violence’ against its western neighbour.
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