Russian troops depart Chernobyl following disappearance of nuclear material

A day after Moscow promised to curb attacks on Ukrainian cities – a pledge that hasn’t been honoured yet – it seems that Russian forces are withdrawing from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This is only a few days after looters apparently raided one of the site’s radiation monitoring labs, making off with radioactive material.

The site of the 1986 nuclear disaster doesn’t have any active reactors, but serves as Ukraine’s nuclear waste facility. Around 20,000 spent assemblies, each containing about 130kg of nuclear fuel, sit in water-filled cooling ponds. More are stored at underground facilities. The site also features an aircraft hangar-sized building covering the remains of the reactor that exploded in 1986. Both the ponds and the dome require electricity to keep the still radioactive material contained within safe.