The Sun
The UK has pulled out it’s Embassy staff in Kiev as fears over a Russian invasion grow amid NATO sending in reinforcements to the region.
Sky news reports how the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office insists the Kyiv embassy “remains open and will continue to carry out essential work”.
It comes after the UK this morning REFUSED to rule out sending more troops to Ukraine as the threat of a Russian invasion of the Eastern European nation intensifies.
Speaking hours after it was claimed the Russian president plans to install a ‘puppet government’ in Kiev, Dominic Raab said there will be “severe consequences” for the Kremlin.
“The Foreign Secretary and Foreign Office have come out making clear what the designs of the Russian government are,” he told Sky’s Trevor Phillips.
“We don’t go into things like sources, but it’s very clear there’s a concerted military build-up and a threat to the democracy and integrity of Ukraine. Putin and Moscow have a habit of trying to take advantage of opportunities when the world’s attention is elsewhere.”
-
Ukraine rushes to ‘defend Chernobyl’
The site around the former nuclear plant is still the most radioactive place on Earth and the area was abandoned after it exploded in 1986.
But as fears mount of a Russian invasion, Ukraine has now moved troops to the desolate region on its northern border with Belarus.
In recent weeks it has been reported that Belarus, which is an ally of Russia, may be one of the routes the Kremlin’s forces may use to invade Ukraine.
Russia and Belarus are due to hold joint military exercises in February, Ukraine has now deployed thousands of troops to the area around Chernobyl, the New York Times reports.
The town of Pripyat, next to where Chernobyl stood and where its workers lived, is now a ghost town.
Chernobyl itself is partially closed with workers who maintain the huge ‘sarcophagus’ built over the damaged reactor rotating in and out.
“We don’t know what will kill us first, the virus, radiation or war,” one worker, Oleksei Prishepa, told the paper.
