https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ukrainian-officials-warn-of-fighting-in-chernobyl-exclusion-zone/
Russian forces captured the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after battles in the nuclear exclusion zone on Thursday evening local time, Ukrainian officials said.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s office of the president, confirmed that the reactor was in Russian hands, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian officials warned earlier that damage to nuclear storage facilities could send “radioactive dust” across Europe.
“Russian occupation forces are trying to seize the” Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Twitter post. “Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated….This is a declaration of war against the whole of Europe.”
The Chernobyl reactor was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, when the core of the reactor melted down. Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of the Interior, wrote on Facebook that Russian forces had moved to Chernobyl from Belarus, Ukraine’s northern neighbor.