- A video purports to prove that Russian troops dug trenched in Chernobyl's "Red Forest."
- Russian troops may have exposed themselves to dangerous levels of radiation by digging there.
- The video, shared by the Ukrainian military, is undated and its origin is unclear.
A video shared by the Ukrainian military purports to show proof that Russian troops dug trenches in the Red Forest, the most contaminated area of Chernobyl's exclusion zone.
The video, which is not dated and of unknown origin, seems to show drone footage.
It depicts land that looks dug up, in a continuous shot that pans to an image of the sarcophagus covering the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in the distance.
The video was shared by the Ukrainian military on Twitter on Wednesday.
It came with the text: "Video proof. Russian command did order its soldiers to dig fortifications near the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in the radioactive Red Forest in March, 2022." Chornobyl is an alternate spelling.
The tweet can be seen below:
—Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 6, 2022
A road can be seen in the video which appears to correspond with a location on maps of the region, which would put the recording site about 3.5 km (2 miles) from the power plant.
The Russian troops left the site last week, five weeks after invading the Chernobyl exclusion zone on February 24.
Energoatom, Ukraine's state power company,said that Russian troops dug trenches while they were there, and subsequently suffered signs of radiation sickness.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, an organization affiliated with the United Nations that offers advice on radioactive safety, has said that it is investigating the claims.
According to unnamed Ukrainian workers who were at the Chernobyl site while Russia occupied it, troops drove armored vehicles through the Red Forest without any protective gear and exposed themselves to radioactive dust.
One worker said some troops seemed unaware of the 1986 disaster that made Chernobyl synonymous with nuclear disaster.