Radiation levels have risen from the Chernobyl nuclear site after the fierce fighting that saw Russia seize the defunct plant, Ukraine has said.
Ukraine’s nuclear energy regulatory agency said that higher than usual gamma radiation levels had been detected in the area.
The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate attributed the rise to a “disturbance of the topsoil due to the movement of a large amount of heavy military equipment through the exclusion zone and the release of contaminated radioactive dust into the air”.
A Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also said Russian shelling hit a radioactive waste repository and an increase in radiation levels was reported.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed that the radiation levels coming out of the power plant are normal.
Chernobyl’s “exclusion zone” - a 32-km (19-mile) radius around the decommissioned plant - has been in place since an explosion in 1986 caused by a faulty reactor led to the worst nuclear disaster in human history.
Russian military forces seized control of the plant on Thursday after entering the zone.
An adviser to the Ukrainian president warned that the Chernobyl site may be used by Russia as a blackmail tactic against the West.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky, told the news site Ukrinform.: “Chernobyl has been seized and I think they will blackmail the West. The President’s Office is preparing a response to possible blackmail through Chernobyl.”
Samantha Turner, a security fellow at the Truman National Security Project, told the BBC control of the area does not have “battle-determining significance”, but could provide a path into the Kyiv for invading forces.
Chernobyl is located about 130 km (80 miles) north of the capital, Kyiv, and gives Russian forces a corridor to the Dnipro River which runs through the capital.
The White House expressed outrage at “credible reports” from Ukrainian officials that staff at the shuttered Chernobyl nuclear plant have been taken hostage by Russian troops.
Press secretary Jen Psaki said on Thursday that “we condemn it and we request their release”.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) also said on Friday morning that workers at the nuclear power plant had been captured by the Russian forces.
Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian defence ministry, claimed Russian presence there “guarantees that terrorist groups or nationalist forces will not be able to take advantage of the situation and pull off a nuclear provocation”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said it is following the situation in Ukraine “with grave concern” and appealed for maximum restraint to avoid any action that may put Ukraine’s nuclear facilities at risk.
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, said: “I can’t imagine how it would be in Russia’s interest to allow any facilities at Chernobyl to be damaged.”
In an interview, Mr Lyman said he is most worried about spent fuel stored at the site, which has not been active since 2000. If the power to cooling pumps is disrupted or fuel-storage tanks are damaged, the results could be catastrophic, he said.
Reactor Number Four at the power plant exploded and caught fire on April 26, 1986, shattering the building and spewing radioactive material high into the sky.
Soviet authorities made the catastrophe even worse by failing to tell the public what had happened, angering European governments and the Soviet people.
The two million residents of Kyiv were not informed despite the fallout danger, and the world learned of the disaster only after heightened radiation was detected in Sweden.
The building containing the exploded reactor was covered in 2017 by an enormous shelter aimed at containing radiation still leaking from the accident. Robots inside the shelter work to dismantle the destroyed reactor and gather up the radioactive waste.
It is expected to take until 2064 to finish dismantling the reactors. Ukraine decided to use the deserted zone as the site for its centralised storage facility for spent fuel from the country’s other remaining nuclear power plants.
