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• MUTATIONS RADIATION CHERNOBYL AFTERMATH FULL

25 and did not restart until March 1, 2022, so the full magnitude of disturbance to the region from the troop movements is unclear. The sensor network abruptly stopped reporting early on Feb. That’s when Russian invaders reached the area from neighboring Belarus.īecause the rise in radiation levels was most obvious in the immediate vicinity of the reactor buildings, there was concern that the containment structures had been damaged, although Russian authorities have denied this possibility. Sensors put in place by the Ukrainian Chernobyl EcoCenter in case of accidents or forest fires showed dramatic jumps in radiation levels along major roads and next to the reactor facilities starting after 9 p.m on Feb. Radiation monitoring stations across the Chernobyl zone recorded the first obvious environmental impact of the invasion. In parts of the so-called Red Forest near the power plant it’s possible to receive a dangerous radiation dose in just a few days of exposure. Thousands of acres surrounding the reactor site have ambient radiation dose rates exceeding typical background levels by thousands of times. The Chernobyl exclusion zone is among the most radioactively contaminated regions on the planet. Mousseau, CC BY-ND Environmental risks on the ground in Chernobyl

View of the power plant site from a distance, with the containment shield structure in place over the destroyed reactor. A direct hit on the power plant’s spent fuel pools or dry cask storage facilities could release substantially more radioactive material into the environment than the original meltdown and explosions in 1986 and thus cause an environmental disaster of global proportions. This is the highly radioactive material produced by a nuclear reactor during normal operations. The reactor site likely offers considerable protection from aerial attack, given the improbability that Ukrainian or other forces would risk combat on a site containing more than 5.3 million pounds (2.4 million kilograms) of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Such control over the power supply likely has strategic importance, although Kyiv’s electrical needs could probably also be supplied via other nodes on the Ukrainian national power grid.

It’s possible to turn the lights off in Kyiv from here, even though the power plant itself has not generated any electricity since 2000, when the last of Chernobyl’s four reactors was shut down. The power plant site also houses the main electrical grid switching network for the entire region. The reactor site’s industrial area is, in effect, a large parking lot suitable for staging an invading army’s thousands of vehicles. The Chernobyl zone abuts Belarus and is thus immune from attack from Ukrainian forces from the north. It is a large, unpopulated area connected by a paved highway straight to the Ukrainian capital, with few obstacles or human developments along the way. In hindsight, the strategic benefits of basing military operations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone seem obvious. As of the beginning of March 2022, Russian forces controlled the Chernobyl facility.