Russian soldiers who seized the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster drove their armoured vehicles without radiation protection through a highly toxic zone called the 'Red Forest', kicking up clouds of radioactive dust, workers at the site said.
FILE PHOTO: A New Safe Confinement structure at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is seen behind the abandoned town of PripyatLONDON -Russian soldiers who seized the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster drove their armoured vehicles without radiation protection through a highly toxic zone called the "Red Forest", kicking up clouds of radioactive dust, workers at the site said.
Both men said they had witnessed Russian tanks and other armoured vehicles moving through the Red Forest, which is the most radioactively contaminated part of the zone around Chernobyl, around 100 km north of Kyiv. "The convoy kicked up a big column of dust. Many radiation safety sensors showed exceeded levels," he said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Feb. 25 that radiation levels at the Chernobyl site reached 9.46 microsieverts per hour but remained "within an operating range" recorded in the exclusion zone from the moment of its creation and posed no threat to the general population. In the weeks the two plant employees were sharing the complex with Russian troops, they also said they saw none of them using any gear that would protect them from radiation.
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