Russian soldiers who occupied the retired Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine have absorbed lethal amounts of radiation, according to Ukraine’s Minister of Energy German Galushchenko.
“They were digging in soil contaminated with radiation, collecting radioactive sand in bags for fortifications, they breathed this dust,” Galushchenko said in a statement released on the Ministry of Energy’s Facebook page.
russian soldiers who were digging fortifications near the Chornobyl nuclear power plant have no more than a year to live, says the head of @minenergo_ua German Galushchenko. That’s the hard fate and ruthless end of russian military who are being killed by their own command.
— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 8, 2022
“After a month of such exposure, they have a maximum of one year of life. More precisely, not life but slow death from diseases,” he said.
He added that the level of ignorance of the Russian soldiers who occupied Chernobyl is greater than the radiation levels of the soil they dug into.
Chernobyl is the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. Russian forces occupied the plant for approximately one month and set up fortifications in areas that Ukrainian officials said were contaminated with high levels of radiation.
Video of the trenches that Russian soldiers dug in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 6, 2022
Absolute geniuses... pic.twitter.com/bUl3yKefgc
Chernobyl plant workers interviewed by Reuters said they saw Russian tanks and armored vehicles move through the most radioactively contaminated area at the plant.
According to Galushchenko, any Russian equipment that passed through radiated areas in Chernobyl has been contaminated and anyone who comes into contact with said equipment is at risk of exposure.
“Every Russian soldier brings a piece of Chernobyl home whether alive or dead,” he said in the statement.
