Ukraine is negotiating the exchange of 169 National Guard servicemen taken prisoners of war in the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.
The Minister of Internal Affairs, Denys Monastyrskyi, announced this information.
"Chornobyl is a tragic page in our history. Unfortunately, we have to admit that 169 servicemen of the National Guard were taken prisoners of war there. According to the information we have, some of them are in the Republic of Belarus; some are in Russia ... Negotiations about their return are underway. But we understand that this will be possible only after the end of the active phase of the war," - he wrote on Facebook.
According to the Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIF), the National Guard servicemen were detained with violation of their rights and without proper conditions.
"We visited the place where russians kept them. This is a dungeon without light, without the ability to communicate properly. They were deprived of all means of communication when they were there," - Monastyrskyi said.
The russian occupiers entered the Chornobyl zone during the first days of the war. They were stationed just near the CNPP (Chornobyl nuclear power plant) with weapons and ammunition, which represented a particular emergency risk. At the same time, they decided to dig trenches in the so-called Red Forest, which is more than 202 square kilometers of trees near NPP that took a high dose of radiation after the disaster in 1986. The russian occupiers went there without protective suits and raised clouds of radioactive dust.
On 30 March 2022, it became known that buses with the russian militaries were arriving at the Belarusian Center for Radiation Medicine.
On 31 March 2022, the russian occupiers left the CNPP after signing the "Act of Acceptance and Transfer of Protection" of the plant; they also took Ukrainian National Guard servicemen prisoners of war.