Dhe Russian army has captured the destroyed Chernobyl reactor, news agencies reported on Thursday evening. They referred to an adviser to the Ukrainian president. “It is impossible to say that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is safe after a completely senseless attack by the Russians,” Mykhailo Podolyak was quoted as saying by Reuters. Russia wants to control the reactor “to signal to NATO that it will not intervene militarily,” the agency quoted an unnamed Russian source as saying. But a senior Western intelligence official can only shake his head. “Look at the map where Chernobyl is,” he says.
Namely: right on the Pripyat River and on the P56 road, which leads from the easternmost corner of Belarus to Ivankiv, where you can turn west towards Kiev. It is only 120 kilometers from Chernobyl to the Ukrainian capital. “This is the western direction of advance,” says the secret service agent, one of the two axes of the Russians who are in the process of encircling Kiev from two sides. The other axis runs east of the Dnieper via Chernihiv. Military experts and intelligence officials had pointed out the central importance of these two axes for weeks before the invasion.
Battle for the airports
This had not escaped the notice of the Ukrainian army either. She had massed forces at the former power plant, whose destroyed reactor is secured with a “sarcophagus” made of reinforced concrete. Because that was the obvious point to stop a Russian advance from the west – not because of the power plant, but because of the road and bridge over the Pripyat running directly past it. As expected, Russian tank forces arriving from Belarus arrived there in the first hours after the start of the war. There was said to be fierce fighting, but as in other places, the Ukrainians were “overwhelmed by the superior firepower and troop strength of the Russian army,” according to the intelligence officer. The Russians were able to advance, also on the other side of the river.
At the same time, airborne troops and special forces attacked three airports around the capital: the two international airports of Antonov to the north and Boryspil to the east, and Zhytomyr Airport, 130 kilometers to the west. They took control of the last two, but fought for Antonov. On Thursday evening, the Ukrainian government reported that its troops had recaptured the airport.
According to the intelligence officer, the airports are central to the Russian offensive on Kiev. Troops can be flown in there, collected and combat helicopters can be pulled together. And a look at the map also shows why Antonov is so important in the town of Hostomel: that’s where the troops who are advancing on the capital from Chernobyl arrive. As long as the airport is not securely in Russian hands, the push in this direction will be delayed.
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