Russian troops have exited Slavutych, Ukraine, after completing their task of surveying the defunct Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the town’s mayor announced Monday.
The Russian military had seized the town and kidnapped Mayor Yuri Fomichev over the weekend, prompting protests from city residents outside the City Hall. However, city leaders reported no Russian troops remain in Slavutych, which lies just outside the safety exclusion zone of the Chernobyl plant, the site of the infamous 1986 nuclear disaster.
“They completed the work they had set out to do,” Fomichev said in an online video post, according to Reuters. “They surveyed the town. Today, they finished doing it and left the town. There aren’t any in the town right now.”
RUSSIAN FORCES OVERTAKE TOWN NEAR CHERNOBYL AND KIDNAP MAYOR
Slavutych, home to many Chernobyl workers, has experienced intense fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine last month, prompting concerns of nuclear fallout. The site requires the constant monitoring of nuclear waste, and Ukrainian staff members have continued to work at the site even after Russian forces seized the area in February.
Russian forces destroyed one of the new labs located at Chernobyl last week, reportedly stealing “highly active samples” and “samples of radionuclides,” according to the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management. The Russian military seized Chernobyl early at the outset of war, with more than 200 staff working around the clock to avoid another nuclear disaster.
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More than 3.7 million people have fled Ukraine amid the Russian invasion, and at least 1,035 civilians have been killed as of Friday, according to the United Nations. Another 13 million citizens are estimated to be stranded in the country and unable to leave due to security risks.
