Not a single building that was not looted by Russians: stories of witnesses of Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant occupation
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Russian army occupied the Chornobyl exclusion zone for 36 days and threatened the world with a new nuclear disaster.
Local residents told the Ukrainian Witness project about the events they experienced during the occupation.
A local huntsman Vasyl told the project about planes entering Ukrainian airspace from Belarus.
"They would launch missiles that would then reach Kyiv. They would immediately turn around and fly back.
This is hell. It's hard to watch it all. We had an agricultural company here. They took everything away. They came in cars, ATVs with machine guns. They pulled out and took away everything they could. It's like a plague," the man emphasised.
He recalls that the occupiers were looking for ATO participants [The ATO or Anti-Terrorist Operation is a term used from 2014 to 2018 by the media, the government of Ukraine and the OSCE to identify combat actions in parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts against Russian military forces and pro-Russian separatists – ed.]. They were forcing men to undress and looked for tattoos.
A local resident said that the occupiers' heavy equipment drove by her house for 15 hours.
"They just drove in on an armoured vehicle like thieves and took everything from the store in 15 minutes: candy, feminine hygiene products. Three people were shot in the back from the village, and a 14-year-old boy was among the victims," the woman says.
According to local residents, looting was rampant in the village of Strakholissia, near Chornobyl. The occupiers were stealing new equipment for which the owners had not even received documents yet, said Volodymyr, one of the residents.
He worked in a local shop. He saw with his own eyes how the occupiers robbed the locals. He says they also destroyed a recently repaired road.
Another local resident said that the occupiers broke doors and windows in houses.
"There is not a single building in Chornobyl that they have not looted. They even stole radiation-contaminated KRAZ trucks. After the Russian soldiers left, road signs disappeared from the roadside, and fresh markings disappeared from the road," the project says.
Maksym Shevchuk, deputy head of the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management, spoke about how the occupiers looted during the occupation.
"The state of offices and enterprises is as follows: every building has been looted. The agency's office has also been looted, and you can enter it only through the back door because the front door has not yet been checked for mines," said the deputy head of the state agency.
The leading engineer of the physical protection service also recalls the occupation of the Chornobyl NPP, saying that the occupiers were "fully equipped: they were marching in a column with armoured personnel carriers and armoured trucks, armoured personnel carriers and T-72 tanks".
Background:
- Chornobyl NPP employees performed their duties while under occupation.
- During the occupation, Russian soldiers looted everything around them. They even took spoons and forks from a neighbouring hotel.
- The occupiers left the Chornobyl NPP, taking their own broken equipment and taking the looted equipment and cars.
- During the retreat, the occupiers captured Ukrainian National Guardsmen guarding the Chornobyl NPP. Some of them were returned home during several PoW exchanges in the fall and winter. But a significant number of soldiers are still in captivity.
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