04 May 2024,   08:09
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Ukraine says all Russian forces have left Chernobyl power plant

All the Russian troops that occupied the Chernobyl nuclear power station have now left the site, officials in Kyiv said, as heavy fighting continues to rage on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital and other fronts, writes Al Jazzera.

“There are no longer any outsiders on the territory of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant”, - Ukraine’s state agency in charge of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Energoatom, said on Facebook.

The UN nuclear watchdog, IAEA, also confirmed that it had been informed by Ukraine that Russian forces handed control of the power plant and “moved convoys of troops”.

There was no immediate comment from the Russian authorities.

Though Russian forces seized control of Chernobyl soon after Moscow’s February 24 invasion, the plant’s Ukrainian staff continued to oversee the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel and to supervise the concrete-encased remains of the reactor that exploded in 1986, causing the world’s worst nuclear accident.

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