Russian troops have withdrawn from Chernobyl, Ukrainian agency says

Ukraine’s state-owned atomic energy company, Energoatom, said in a statement to Telegram that all of the plant’s technological equipment and radiation monitoring systems were working “normally” on Friday.

The Chernobyl plant, the scene of a major disaster in 1986, was one of the first strategic facilities seized by Russian forces as they began their war against Ukraine in February. The capture sparked international alarm and raised fears of a nuclear accident.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who visited another nuclear power plant in Ukraine earlier this week and traveled to Russia on Friday for talks with senior officials, described the news of Russia’s withdrawal from Chernobyl as “undoubtedly a step in the right direction”.

“We said that the factory had to be operated by its own operators … under normal conditions, which of course were not present when you had foreign troops,” Grossi said.

He told a news conference Friday that the IAEA would send a mission to Chernobyl “very, very soon”, where he said radiation levels were “pretty normal”. He said agency staff would need safe routes to move through the conflict zone. He added that the IAEA also plans to establish a “rapid-relief mechanism” that can quickly dispatch a team to assess and assist in the event of a nuclear facility emergency.

Large amounts of radioactive material have polluted the land around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the 1986 disaster. Today, an “exclusion zone,” where radioactive contamination is highest, occupies approximately 1,000 square miles around the site.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Thursday that Ukrainian officials had informed it that Russian forces had “transferred control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in writing” to Ukrainian personnel.

The IAEA also said it was unable to confirm reports that Russian troops had received “high doses of radiation” while stationed in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The agency said it was “looking for more information to provide an independent assessment of the situation”. Grossi told reporters Friday that the agency was aware of the claims but had no confirmation.

Russian troops withdrew toward Ukraine’s border with Belarus after announcing plans to leave the factory, Energoatom said in a statement on Thursday. Russian troops also appeared to be withdrawing from the satellite city of Slavutych, Energoatom added, where many Chernobyl employees live. The claims could not be independently verified.

The Chernobyl zone, one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the world, has been closed since 1986, although a small number of people still live in the area – mainly elderly Ukrainians who refused to evacuate or who returned after the area was evacuated.

The building with the exploded reactor from 1986 was covered in 2017 with a huge shield intended to stop the radiation still coming from the factory. Robots in the factory are working to dismantle the destroyed reactor and collect radioactive waste. It is expected to take until 2064 for the reactors to be safely decommissioned.

Brittany Shammas contributed to this report.