Ukraine: Government Fears Russia May Use Chernobyl To Blackmail West

An aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Chernobyl could be used as a possible blackmail tactic by Russia.

Russian forces are said to have captured the Chernobyl power station on February 24, the first day of war in Ukraine.

Now, Oleksiy Arestovych, an aide to president Zelensky, has said that he believes the site could be used as a 'possible blackmail' tactic against the West.

Arestovych explained, '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', The Telegraph reports.

Chernobyl is located on the most direct route from Belarus to Kyiv, which has placed it in the logical line of attack for invading Russian forces.

Heavy fighting in Chernobyl was said to have broken out, between troops from Belarus and Ukrainian soldiers guarding the storage of radioactive waste.

According to Ukrainian officials, the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl and the surrounding area were showing increased levels of gamma radiation.

Ukraine's nuclear energy regulatory agency has said that higher levels of radiation have been detected in the area. The agency attributed the rise in radiation levels to the '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'.

President Zelensky warned against Russia's attempts to capture the site in a tweet.

He wrote, 'Russian occupation forces are trying to seize the #Chornobyl_NPP. Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated.'

Chernobyl is one of the most radioactive places in the world and large parts of the exclusion zone were closed off since the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown in 1986.

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