Computers, vehicles, radiation dosimeters, irreplaceable software. “Almost every piece of firefighting equipment,” the Washington Post informs in its article.
“The list of what Russia’s occupying forces stole, blew up or riddled with bullets in and around Chernobyl’s laboratories is still being compiled,” the Washington Post writes.
The newspaper provided information that Russians stole or destroyed, among other losses, 698 computers, 344 vehicles, 1,500 dosimeters, irreplaceable software and nearly all of the firefighting equipment.
“I cannot say that they have caused damage to mankind, but certainly great economic damage to Ukraine,” Mykola Bespaly, director of the site’s Central Analytical Laboratory, said during an interview for the Washington Post.
Nuclear plant workers quoted by the newspaper reported, summing up the month the Russians spent there, that nine of their colleagues were killed and five were kidnapped, but that the disaster many feared – a war releasing radiation across the region – was avoided.
One of the workers estimates the cost of repairing the damage at more than $135 million. “The software, however, was custom-made and is irreplaceable,” he said.
“We will restore everything. It will all work again. But this is as if someone came to your house, saw that everything is well and beautiful, and therefore s—s on your white bed,” Leonid Bohdan, head of the lab’s spectrometry and radiochemistry department, in an interview for the Washington Post.
Read the whole article with an interview on the Washington Post website.