Russian troops seize Chernobyl's remnants after a battle, risking Western efforts to contain one of the world's most radioactive sites

• Russian troops attacked through the special protective zone around Chernobyl, an official said.
• Nations have long worked to contain the 1986 disaster. Some areas may not support life for a century.

Russian troops have reportedly seized the remnants of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, a move that signals the likelihood of their trying to assault Kyiv and that risks decades of united efforts to contain one of the worst nuclear disasters.

In a tweet early Thursday, BuzzFeed News' Christopher Miller quoted Mykhailo Podoliak, an advisor to the head of the plant, as saying: "After a fierce battle, Ukrainian control over the Chernobyl site was lost. The condition of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant, confinement, and nuclear waste storage facilities is unknown."

The Associated Press described unnamed Ukrainian officials as saying that Russian shelling had hit a radioactive-waste repository. Reports of the fighting and possible damage could not be independently confirmed.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier warned that fighting was underway. "Russian occupation forces are trying to seize the #Chornobyl_NPP," he tweeted early Thursday. "Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated."

A roughly 20-mile exclusion zone encircles the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster. Parts of the zone are not expected to support human life for another hundred years. Weather conditions at the time of the incident mean some areas contain far more radiation than others.

Lydia Zablotska, a radiation expert at the University of California at San Francisco who grew up in Ukraine, told Insider before the reports of the attacks on Thursday that the zone remained "the most contaminated place" on Earth.

"No one should go into those areas," Zablotska said. "It's dangerous for a reason. A number of studies both in humans and animals and from different branches of science say it's dangerous, unadvisable, and no one should go into that area."

The Ukrainian military has in recent months ramped up deployments to the zone — largely a no-man's-land — in anticipation that Russian forces could assault through it from Belarus, a close Russian ally where troops have been training. The area is still of strategic importance, and thus a broader war could unfold in the shadow of a nuclear disaster. The New York Times reported earlier this year that the deployments had allowed the Ukrainians to map the highly radiated areas of the zone. Radiation exposure is monitored via a dosimeter attached to a soldier's uniform.

Containing the nuclear disaster has been a decades-long and costly endeavor. In 2016, a billion-dollar containment dome was erected over the No. 4 nuclear reactor, the site of the 1986 explosion. The dome, the world's largest moveable metal structure, was built to last a century and be capable of withstanding corrosion and tornadoes. It's not clear how much combat damage it could sustain.

A small team maintains the dome. It was not clear on Thursday amid the reports of fighting in the zone whether its members were still on the ground. Special permission is required to enter the zone, though some thrill-seeking tourists occasionally wander into the area.

Chernobyl remains a lasting symbol of Soviet-era mismanagement. The Kremlin stood silent about what happened for days in 1986 until the Swedish government forced its hand. Meanwhile, life largely went on as normal — a reality that undergirded the public pushback against Moscow and that remains a low point in Ukrainian-Russian relations.

Two workers were killed in the initial explosion, and 28 first responders died in the months after. Pripyat, then a town of just under 50,000 people, was evacuated within 36 hours. About 200,000 people were later relocated.