Dozens of Russian troops 'fall ill with radiation poisoning at Chernobyl'

Concerns around how secure the new containment is have been growing since the Russian invasion caused a leak at a Zaporizhzhia facility

There are reports of dozens of Russian soldiers falling ill with radiation as President Putin's forces are beginning to withdraw from Chernobyl and its surrounding areas - territory which they have held since February 24. As per a Facebook post from Yaroslav Yemelianenko - the CEO of the Chernobyl Tour and member of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management - "Another batch of irradiated Russian terrorists who captured the Chernobyl zone" were brought to the Belarusian Centre for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology in Gomel on Wednesday, March 31.

This came just a few hours after Russia announced it would be "drastically" cutting back its military presence around Chernihiv and the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, following peace talks in Istanbul.

Furthermore, Yemelianenko's update was soon followed by reports by AFP citing a US official within the Pentagon, who said that Putin's troops are "walking away from the Chernobyl facility and moving into Belarus".

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1509293826535473155?s=20&t=MGb4r1Dvt0vdkisw7tLulg

Radiation levels had previously been reported to have reached "excessive levels" following the capture of Chernobyl's New Confinement Site (finished in 2016) and concerns only grew after a fire caused by shelling resulted in a leak at a similar plant in Zaporizhzhia.

Yemelianenko went on to taunt Russians, writing, "Digging the trenches in the Rudu [Red] Forest, bitches? Now live the rest of your short life with this". The 'Red Forest' is the name given to the heavily irradiated, 400-hectare piece of land which soaked up the gamma radiation emitted after the disaster in 1986.

According to reports in The Metro, he went on to add that that "there are rules for handling this territory. They are mandatory to perform because radiation is physics [...] if your command or soldiers had even minimal intelligence, these consequences could have been avoided."

His claims were confirmed by Belarusian sources on Telegram, reporting that "seven medical PAZs arrived at the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology", along with the added caveat that "Russian soldiers are brought to this centre on a regular basis."

While the Pentagon insider could not confirm whether "they’re all gone", a rapid evacuation of the region looks to be necessary as Reuters had already reported that Russians had been "kicking up clouds of radioactive dust" as their trucks rolled through the site and troops continued to occupy they area without any proper protection.