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After the Russian military took control of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in connection to the country's "special military operation" in Ukraine, the workers held at the facility retaliated with a defiant gesture.
The Russian military confiscated the workers' cellphones and forced them to work for weeks at gunpoint by forbidding a shift change. In retaliation, the workers played the Ukrainian national anthem loudly every morning as a way of defying the military, Anatolii Nosovskyi, the director of the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP), said in a Science report. The Russians reportedly allowed fresh staff into the facility last week.
At 9 a.m., the employees would stand with their palms pressed against their chest while Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished played on the loudspeaker before returning to work. The staff was forced to work around the clock, spending nearly 500 hours at the job site after Russian forces took control of the plant, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Ukrainian government was concerned radiation levels could spike after the Russian military took control of Chernobyl in February and the plant lost power on March 9 for several days. While the power has been restored and radiation levels at Ukraine's nuclear facilities seem to be in a normal range, Nosovskyi said he is now worried because "looters" had raided a radiation monitoring lab in Chernobyl, Science added.
Previous reports said the looters had taken materials that could create a "dirty bomb." Nosovskyi told Newsweek there was not enough nuclear materials at the facility to make such a bomb and there were only a small number of samples kept for research purposes.
He added that if nuclear material was extracted from the shelter it would be possible to "get the desired result" but it requires special technology to take that material out. The probability of creating a dirty bomb is low if not impossible, Nosovskyi said.
They are still unable to get to Chernobyl even though the Russian military has moved out of the area, Nosovskyi said. Bridges across the rivers have been destroyed and there is no water or electricity.
"As soon as we are given permission to enter Chernobyl, we will immediately be there," Nosovskyi said.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday Russia is not thinking about using nuclear weapons during its military action against Ukraine. Perkov had repeatedly refused to rule out that Russia would consider using nuclear force against an "existential threat" just one week ago on CNN.
Correction (04/06/22, 12:34 p.m. ET): This story has been updated to reflect that the Chernobyl lab does not contain enough material to create a dirty bomb.
