As Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine’s shuttered Chernobyl nuclear plant five weeks after seizing it, an international nuclear watchdog is looking into reports that some soldiers are being poisoned with radiation. .
Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is expected to speak at a news conference on Friday afternoon at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna following a meeting with senior government officials. high of Ukraine and Russia.
Russian troops left the plant and the nearby city of Slavutych on Thursday, according to Energoatom, Ukraine’s state energy company. Three convoys of troops leaving the site are heading north to Belarus, IAEA said in a statement.
The agency said it was working to confirm reports from local media that Russian soldiers had left the site because some people had been exposed to high levels of radiation there.
The agency also said it would send experts and safety and security supplies to Ukraine to ensure safety at Chernobyl, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, in 1986.
Pentagon spokesman, John F. Kirby, Doubts about the reports that the Russian special forces soldiers were suffering from radiation sickness, told a news conference on Thursday that “at this early stage” the troop transfer appeared to be “part of this larger effort to re-equip and supplies and not necessarily because of health hazards or of some kind in the event of an emergency or crisis at Chernobyl. “
Russia arrests decommissioning factory the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine, raising concerns about radiation levels and safety protection at the site, where spent fuel still requires round-the-clock maintenance.
