As battle continued on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts, Russian forces gave control of the Chernobyl nuclear power facility back to the Ukrainians and left the dangerously radioactive site early Friday, more than a month after seizing it over, Ukrainian authorities said.
The pullback at Chernobyl came after soldiers absorbed “substantial doses” of radiation while excavating trenches in the forest in the exclusion zone around the shutdown plant, according to Energoatom, Ukraine’s state power company. However, there was no independent corroboration.
The pullback came amid mounting evidence that the Kremlin is using promises of de-escalation in Ukraine as cover for regrouping, resupplying, and redeploying its forces in preparation for a more aggressive operation in the country’s east.
Russian retreats from the north and center of the nation, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are merely a military technique, and the forces are preparing for new major attacks in the southeast.
In his nightly video message to the nation, Zelenskyy declared, “We know their aims.” “We know they’re shifting their attention away from the locations where we struck them in order to focus on other, more crucial areas where we might have a hard time.”
He went on to say, “There will be conflicts ahead.”
Meanwhile, after the Russian military agreed to a brief cease-fire in the area, a convoy of 45 buses traveled to Mariupol in another attempt to evacuate people from the beleaguered port city. According to the Ukrainian authorities, Russian military barred the buses, and only 631 people were able to leave the city in private automobiles.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, 12 Ukrainian buses were able to carry 14 tons of food and medical supplies to Mariupol, but the aid was seized by Russian troops.
The city has witnessed some of the war’s most heinous atrocities. Thousands of people have been able to flee Mariupol through humanitarian corridors in recent weeks, bringing the city’s population down from 430,000 before the war to an estimated 100,000 as of last week, while other relief efforts have been stymied by Russian attacks.
Five weeks into the battle that has killed thousands of people and pushed 4 million Ukrainians from their homes, a fresh round of talks has been arranged for Friday.
Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that Russian personnel at the site of the world’s biggest nuclear disaster had handed over control of the tragedy in writing to the Ukrainians.
According to the Ukrainian government organization in charge of the exclusion zone, the final Russian troops left the Chernobyl facility early Friday.