I think they seized it because they need the general area to move their troops. In that case they can't tolerate Ukrainian troops there, but somebody has to be in control and responsible for this site to ensure, among other things, no terrorists make off with radioactive material.
I'm totally condemning the Russian actions, but in this particular case they may be acting somewhat responsibly. Unlike with the bombing of civilians or the whole damn war in the first place!
Never believe anybody who says attacks are "surgical" or "limited to strategic objectives" - bombs and shrapnels don't look at documents. War is war, civilian casualties are always inevitable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to keep their numbers down, of course - in fact, it means war should never be waged, because innocents will always be caught in it.
Some Ukrainian Hospitals have been struck by artillery. No one knows if it was on purpose or not, but either way that's pretty bad since the world is still suffering from the COVID19 pandemic.
>no terrorists make off with radioactive material.
The reactors that aren't infamous have already had all fuel removed. The one that was scattered all over the countryside has plenty of highly radioactive debris but you can't realistically pull out material for a dirty bomb. Terrorists would have better luck stealing cobalt 60 sources and spreading that through a city than trying to break into the new safe confinement, break into the sarcophagus, find a suitably large amount of highly radioactive material, somehow break it into pieces and truck it out of the area, etc.
Terrorists aren't going to try to use the war as cover to sneak into Chernobyl regardless of Russian troop presence.
That would be an awkward claim considering Ukraine _had_ nuclear weapons and gave them up to Russia in the 90s for guarantees about Ukraine's territorial integrity. Obviously that didn't work so well for Ukraine now
> Ukraine have acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-nuclear states and are now transferring Soviet missiles and warheads to Russia for dismantlement on a strict schedule.
> Ukraine gave up a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons left over by the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and used the fuel from its blended-down warheads to drive its nuclear power plants.
I'm totally condemning the Russian actions, but in this particular case they may be acting somewhat responsibly. Unlike with the bombing of civilians or the whole damn war in the first place!