Russian forces seize control of Chernobyl workers' town

LVIV • Russian forces have taken control of Ukraine's Slavutych, where workers at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant live, the governor of Kyiv region said yesterday.

In an online post, Governor Oleksandr Pavlyuk did not describe how the town had been taken, but said some residents had unfurled a large Ukrainian flag and shouted "Glory to Ukraine" in protest.

He also said the Russians fired into the air to disperse the pro-Ukraine protesters in the centre of the town and threw stun grenades into the crowd.

There was no immediate comment from Russia about Slavutych.

The town of Slavutych sits just outside a safety exclusion zone around Chernobyl - the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986 - where Ukrainian staff have continued to work in even after the territory was occupied by Russian forces soon after the start of the Feb 24 invasion.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said the town has become a new hot spot of the war.

On Friday, Ukraine said Russian troops had drawn close to the town, which had a pre-war population of around 25,000, and had launched an unsuccessful first attack.

Since then, "the Russian occupiers have invaded the town of Slavutych and seized the city hospital", Mr Pavlyuk said.

In an online post, the city council asked residents to remain calm. "The occupiers' vehicles are moving around the city to check for weapons. Please do not provoke (them) or endanger yourselves."

Moscow has called its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation" to disarm its neighbour. Kyiv and its Western allies said it is an unprovoked war of aggression.

In the besieged city of Mariupol, its mayor said yesterday that he had spoken to France's ambassador to Ukraine about options for evacuating civilians, after French President Emmanuel Macron said he would propose to Russia a plan to help people leave.

Speaking on national television, Mayor Vadym Boichenko said the situation in the encircled city remained critical, with street fighting taking place in its centre.

The United Nations has confirmed 1,081 civilian deaths and 1,707 injuries in Ukraine since the invasion but says the real toll is likely higher.

Some 136 children have been killed so far, Ukraine's prosecutor general office said yesterday.

Meanwhile, the head of Ukraine's defence intelligence agency GUR said the Russian army is riddled with informers and using "old methods of warfare" against Ukrainian forces.

Brigadier-General Kyrylo Budanov in an interview published yesterday also told US publication The Nation that a "very large number of people" have been mobilised to engage in guerilla warfare behind Russian lines.

He said that although the Ukrainian forces have held out against the Russian military for a month, the situation remains "very difficult".

"We have large Russian forces on our territory, and they have encircled the cities of Ukraine," he said. "As for the prospects of peace, despite the negotiations, they still remain vague and unpredictable."

The brigadier-general told The Nation that Ukrainian forces have benefited from "miscalculations" by the Russians.

"The Russian command has made miscalculations many times, and we use these miscalculations," he said.

"The Ukrainian army has shown that the Russian army as the second army in the world is a big myth, and it's just a medieval concentration of manpower, with old methods of warfare," he said.

"We have lots of informers within the Russian army, not only in the Russian army, but also in their political circles and their leadership," he said.

"In November, we already knew about the intentions of the Russians, and you can see that everything came through," he said.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE