Russian Retreat From Chernobyl Opens Door for IAEA Monitors

(Bloomberg) -- International nuclear monitors are preparing to return to the stricken Chernobyl nuclear power plant -- site of the deadly 1986 meltdown -- as soon as Russian troops complete their withdrawal and Ukrainian operators take back control.

International Atomic Energy Agency monitors will be on the ground “very soon,” Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said at a press briefing in Vienna. The Argentine diplomat returned Friday from a week-long trip to Ukraine and Russia, where he worked out separate deals to boost the safety and security of nuclear sites amid a military conflict now in its second month.

Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine on Feb. 24 and targeted Chernobyl from the outset as its troops marched over the border from Belarus. Russian is now retreating from northern Ukraine as Ukrainian forces launch a counteroffensive. The Kremlin has said it will focus on Ukraine's eastern regions.

“This is undoubtedly a step in the right direction,” Grossi said Friday of the Russia withdrawal from Chernobyl. “The plant has to be operated by its own natural operators.”

In the absence of international oversight, Ukrainian officials issued warnings about radiation risks in the country. They have urged the IAEA to send monitors to observe the situation on the ground at Chernobyl and other nuclear power plants. Russian troops shelled and damaged two Ukrainian facilities containing nuclear waste in late February and seized another operating nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the biggest in Europe, in an attack in early March.

Russian troops killed at least four people while trying to take control of a town close to Chernobyl where the plant's employees live.

Russians who left Chernobyl got “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine's state power company said Friday. Moscow's IAEA envoy reported Thursday that Ukrainian workers at the plant sabotaged transmission lines used to monitor radiation safety.

“All technology equipment at the Chernobyl plant is working,” said Valeriy Seyda, the head of Chernobyl. “All radiation control and monitoring systems are operating a usual.”

“We cannot assess damage at the moment as occupants took five out of 15 containers with spare parts of equipment needed for Chernobyl,” he said, adding that Russian troops also captured and removed Ukrainian national guard personnel from the site after seizing control.

Grossi said radiation levels around the plant are normal and that the IAEA hasn't seen any evidence that Russian troops received dangerous doses. Heavy vehicles kicking up dust as they exit the site could temporarily trigger higher measurements, as they did when Russian troops first arrived in February, he said.

The 2,600 square-kilometer (1,000 square-mile) Chernobyl exclusion zone contains long-lived radioactive material that will take thousands of years to decay. It also houses a nuclear-waste facility where spent fuel from Ukraine's reactors is encased for safe, long-term storage.

There are Bigger Atomic Worries Than Chernobyl in Ukraine

Nuclear authorities have been warning for weeks that the relative level of risk at Chernobyl is low, compared to bullets, bombs and the threats to functioning nuclear power plants. But the site of the deadly accident continues to stoke a visceral reaction.

“It has been a bit laborious for us to establish facts,” Grossi said. “If our people are there, it goes much faster.”

The more immediate radiation concerns in Ukraine are centered on the country's 15 other reactors, which are operating in a war zone. Vadim Chumak, head of the external exposure dosimetry lab at Ukraine's National Research Center for Radiation Medicine, told MIT Technology Review this week that he's more concerned by the risk posed by Russia's occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the southeast of the country.

“In Zaporizhzhia they have six reactors, plus spent fuel storage,” he said. “If there was any damage to the spent fuel assemblies stored at Zaporizhzhia, it could result in an enormous radiological emergency, comparable to what happened in Chernobyl.”

The IAEA's agreement with Ukraine and Russia includes a “rapid assistance mechanism” that could be triggered in the event of an accident and will allow monitors on site to “assess and assist almost immediately.” The agency will also deliver personal-protection gear, radiation-detection equipment to authorities, Grossi said.