Employees of the former Ukrainian nuclear power plant Chernobyl are worried about their colleagues who are believed to have been kidnapped to Russia. “It worries us,” says engineer Valeriy Semyonov the Russian-language branch of the British broadcaster BBC. The Ukrainian leadership accuses Russia of holding Chernobyl workers hostage in the building’s bomb shelter for almost a month and then forcibly bringing them to Russia. The information could not initially be checked.
Shortly after invading Ukraine on February 24, Russian troops occupied Chernobyl. However, Ukrainian personnel continued to take care of the maintenance work on the nuclear power plant that was damaged in 1986. During the Russian occupation, the electricity also went out at times. At the time, he secretly stole fuel from the Russian soldiers to keep the emergency power generators running, the Ukrainian expert now says. “I wasn’t afraid for my life. I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t take care of the plant. I was afraid that there would be a tragedy for humanity.”
Radioactive waste is still stored in Chernobyl today. There have been several reports in recent days that Russian soldiers have been digging trenches in the forest and are said to have irradiated themselves in the process.
Photo: Oleksandr Ratushniak/AP/DPA