After Russia launched what Ukraine has termed as a 'full-scale invasion', the former's troops took control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on Thursday, 24 February.
The news was officially announced by Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the presidential office in Kyiv.
"It is impossible to say the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is safe after a totally pointless attack by the Russians. This is one of the most serious threats in Europe today", Podolyak said.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency said that it is "of vital importance that the safe and secure operations of the nuclear facilities in that zone (the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone) should not be affected or disrupted in any way."
In fact, Ukraine's nuclear agency reported on Friday, 25 February, that increased radiation levels were being recorded from the site of the nuclear power plant, according to Reuters.
Additionally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned about the tragedy of 1986, calling Russia's actions "a declaration of war against the whole of Europe".
What happened in 1986? What is the serious threat that Podolyak is talking about? And why does Russian President Vladimir Putin think that it is a good idea to control the Chernobyl plant?
Russia's Interests in Chernobyl
In the current context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the location of Chernobyl is what makes it strategically important.
The city of Chernobyl, not too far from the power plant, is 62 miles from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
More importantly, it is located around 10 miles away from the border of a country that is an important player in this crisis.
That country is Belarus.
Chernobyl is very close to the Ukraine-Belarus border.
(Photo Courtesy: iStock)
Kyiv is not far from Chernobyl, and is pretty much a straight path.
(Photo Courtesy: iStock)
Russia and Belarus are longtime allies, with Putin aiding Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in numerous situations, the most recent ones being the border refugee crisis with Poland, and Lukashenko's re-election, considered fraudulent by many European countries.
Russian troops had been stationed in Belarus for weeks prior to the invasion.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg accused Russia of assembling in Belarus a huge concentration of weapons meant for modern warfare, like tanks.
Joint military exercises took place in February, even though Lukashenko has repeatedly insisted that his troops have not and will not join the Russian forces in the invasion of Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the shortest route to siege Kyiv, as the map shows, is from the north.
From the Ukraine-Belarus border, it is a straight path to Kyiv via Chernobyl.
"They want it (Chernobyl) because they want to take control of the whole effing country. They want to surround the capital", Evelyn Farkas, a senior official in the Obama administration, told NBC News.
What About the Nuclear Waste?
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that surrounds the damaged reactor and Pripyat is the area that Russian troops are occupying at the moment, after hours of fighting.
Even though the radioactive debris has been covered up, the fighting could have resurrected the contaminated soil and debris, leading to the same human and ecological dangers of that Chernobyl faced 35 years ago .
The spread of contaminated air and radioactive debris would harm before anyone else the Russian troops present at the scene, but the effects will spread to other parts of Ukraine and Southern Belarus at the least.
That is why President Zelenskyy warned about the possible repeat of the tragedy of 1986.
If the Ukrainian military tries to retake Chernobyl and fighting against Russian troops resumes, then the risks of contamination, and the consequences that follow, are just too high.
Brief Recap
A devastating accident occurred on 26 April 1986 at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, officially known as the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Plant.
It is located near a city called Pripyat in norther Ukraine (around 10 miles away from the city of Chernobyl), in what was earlier the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a part of the Soviet Union.
A sudden spike in power during a reactors test destroyed Unit 4 of the plant.
The fire caused by the accident released huge amounts of radioactive material into the environment, causing significant damage to human health and the environment.
Less than 100 people died directly due to the accident, mostly workers at Chernobyl and firefighters. More than 200 people, however, suffered from acute radiation sickness.
The disaster contaminated many of the surrounding areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, and the millions who lived in the contaminated areas received small amounts of radiation.
The ecological impacts of the disaster included a spike in radioactivity in drinking water. Radioactive materials kept spreading across parks, roads, and roofs among others due to contaminated rain.
Within six months of the disaster, the the destroyed Chernobyl reactor was completely covered in order to limit the further emission of radioactive material.
Along with the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Chernobyl was rated a seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale, a "major accident".
(With inputs from Reuters and NBC.)
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