Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.

Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that ‘another batch of Russians’ had been taken to the ‘Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel’ for treatment.

It comes after the nuclear power plant’s workers said Russian soldiers’ arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow’s forces seized the site last month was ‘suicidal’.

At least seven busloads of Russian soldiers had arrived at the Republican Scientific and Practical Centre for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology in Gomel this week, according to a Belarusian news Telegram channel.

Yemelianenko said the Kremlin’s men had fallen ill because they failed to follow ‘rules for dealing’ with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.

‘With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,’ he said, adding that radiation protection is ‘mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.’

Workers at the site this week said Russian soldiers last month drove without protective equipment through the Red Forest, kicking up clouds of radioactive dust which was likely to cause internal radiation in their bodies.

source whatsnew2day.com