Viktoria's Husband Has Gone Missing From Chornobyl
"They took them hostage inside, he told me they are holding us captive."
By Joti Heir
WARSAW. "I don’t know where is my husband, what his psychological and physical condition is,” Viktoria writes in a letter to the Red Cross. She is desperate to find her husband and is trying every avenue she can think of to get help.
We’re standing in front of the Ukrainian refugee shelter at the Global EXPO Centrum in Warsaw, Poland. Viktoria’s 3-year-old son Anton is running up and down the steps of a giant egg structure standing in front of the center. She tells him to be careful but lets him run in and out of it as we talk. It’s about the only fun he’s had since Russia invaded Ukraine close to three months ago.
Viktoria last spoke to her husband, 34-year-old Viacheslav on March 30. He is a staff sergeant in the military unit of the National Guard of Ukraine providing security at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine. Viacheslav was working at Chornobyl when Russia launched its attack on Ukraine on February 24. Russian forces entered the 30-kilometer Chornobyl Exclusion Zone that surrounds the nuclear plant that day.
The zone is a militarized area set up after the Chornobyl Disaster of 1986 when an explosion caused the release of radioactive contaminants into the air and made the area uninhabitable. Russian and Ukrainian forces engaged in fighting in this contaminated area with the Russians managing to push through and get into the plant the same day.
“They took them hostage inside, he told me they are holding us captive, I was able to still talk to him when he was at the plant,” she says.
Viktoria says over the next month, she continued to communicate with him until communication abruptly ended after March 30. We know that on March 31, Russian troops withdrew from the plant. It is believed many of those soldiers were experiencing radiation sickness after digging trenches in the contaminated Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. Viktoria says her husband was also exposed to radiation.
Viacheslav and 168 others have not been heard from since says Viktoria. It is believed they may have been taken into Belarus with the withdrawing Russian soldiers.
“The Ukrainian military says we must wait, I wrote a letter to the Red Cross to ask for help, but no one answered me,” says Viktoria.
Viktoria is from a town on the outskirts of Chernihiv. Chernihiv is a city of 262,000, located between Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the Belarusian border. Russian troops poured in from Belarus and assaulted the city for close to a month.
“We just hear bombing, again, again I think, we are going to be finished,” says Viktoria.
Hospitals, stadiums, universities, and homes in Chernihiv have been destroyed in missile attacks.
“We were for one month no food coming in,” she says. Her town was surrounded by Russian forces so nothing could get in or out.
“They were in our town, everything finished in stores, we ate what we have at home, potatoes,” Viktoria says.
At some point in the attacks, there were evacuations from certain areas in Chernihiv to Kyiv, but not all areas could be accessed. Viktoria stayed put.
“There was no electricity also for a week so we burned fire outside and cooked there outside the house,” says Viktoria.
Viktoria received an invitation from relatives in Canada to come to stay with them in Toronto while this was happening. She said she decided to apply for a Canadian visa in April. Viktoria has arrived in Warsaw to get her biometrics done at the Canadian Biometrics site set up inside the Global Expo Center. She’s just finished with her appointment.
“It’s good, but I’m not happy, I don’t know where my husband is, if I can go there and be safe it is good, but when I find my husband, I will come back right away,” Viktoria says. Her face turns bright red, she swallows several times. We’re quiet for a little while.
Now that the biometrics are done, Viktoria plans to stay in Warsaw and wait for an answer from the Canadian government. Inside the Global Expo Center, a 300-bed shelter has been set up inside one of the halls. Viktoria says she spent a few hours there but then spoke to volunteers about finding something more suitable.
“They found for me a place in a church, there are just 9 beds there and a small kitchen, this will be better for us,” she says.
Anton is kicking at a puddle, then runs over to a grate. Viktoria runs after him.
We wave goodbye.
Viktoria has asked that her last name not be used for the safety of her husband. Chronos has contacted Ukraine’s National Guard for an update about this situation and is waiting for an answer.
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