These images show the damage done to the Chernobyl nuclear plant after Russian forces seized the plant in the early days of the Ukraine war.
The site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters was swiftly taken by Vladimir Putin’s troops at the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February.
Russian troops occupied the site – which has a 19-mile exclusion zone – for five weeks and now for the first time photographers have had access to the abandoned plant and documented the trail of destruction left by soldiers.
Litter is strewn all over the floor of buildings, windows are smashed and the walls are covered in graffiti mocking the Ukrainian armed forces.
Any vital equipment left behind has also been trashed. The Washington Post reports that 698 computers, 344 vehicles and 1,500 radiation dosimeters have been destroyed.
The estimated cost of replacing all of this equipment will be about $135m (£110m).
Mykola Bespaly, director of the site’s central analytical laboratory, who visited the site said: “I cannot say that they have caused damage to mankind, but certainly great economic damage to Ukraine.”
Russian forces withdrew from the site in late May as Putin’s generals pulled their forces from areas near Kyiv and switched their focus to fighting in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have previously claimed Russian occupiers held plant workers at gunpoint during a marathon shift of more than a month, with personnel sleeping on tabletops and eating just twice a day.
Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s former president, said that the occupation of the site at the start of the conflict was a risk to the whole of Europe.
“Nuclear smoke is not limited by borders. It can reach eastern Europe, central Europe and even Great Britain. The danger of nuclear contamination of Europe is very high, while Russia continues this war,” he said.
On 26 April 1986 the explosion and fire at Chernobyl sent radioactive material into the atmosphere and became a symbol of the Soviet Union’s stumbling final years. It was one of the worst nuclear disasters the world has ever seen.
The international community, including Russia, spent billions to stabilise and secure the area. The unit where the explosion and fire took place was sheathed in a state-of-art encasement.
The dangers at the plant are ongoing, however, because spent nuclear fuel rods require round-the-clock maintenance. The fuel is from the plant’s four reactors, all now shut down.
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