Russian forces are occupying city housing Chernobyl workers, mayor says

He said three people had died, but he did not say how or when.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his own late-night address on Telegram, confirmed “Russian invaders” had entered the city. He expressed unity with demonstrators, who took to the city’s streets to protest their presence. “Today, we were all with you, on your streets, in your protest,” he said.

Video posted Saturday and verified by The Washington Post shows protesters, some carrying Ukrainian flags, in the city square during a large demonstration against the Russians. Gunfire can be heard in the background, and what appears to be tear gas can be seen engulfing the crowd.

“Russians opened fire in the air. Noise grenades are thrown at the crowd,” the governor of the Kyiv region, Oleksandr Pavlyuk, wrote in a post on his Telegram channel Saturday. “Residents do not disperse. On the contrary, they are increasing.”

Fomichev’s and Pavlyuk’s statements could not be verified independently. Earlier reports said the mayor had been captured by Russian troops but was released following the demonstrations, with Russian troops agreeing to leave the city if people handed over their weapons to the mayor. Slavutych is north of Kyiv, near the Belarusian border and the city of Chernihiv, which is under heavy bombardment by Russian forces and facing a humanitarian crisis.

“Today Slavutych remains a Ukrainian city, under Ukrainian flags. With Ukrainian rule, under the Ukrainian constitution, with our own [laws],” Fomichev said in his address late Saturday. “We now have to learn how to live in these conditions. In the conditions of occupation. Yes, Slavutych has no armed forces. Slavutych is a peaceful city, where energy workers and various specialists, bakers, doctors, teachers and all others live. And we must continue to live.”

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The city is under a 7 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew, controlled by Russian forces, the mayor said. He said that after inspecting buildings for any weapons, the troops “should leave the city.” Officials are negotiating safe corridors for residents to leave and working to distribute humanitarian aid, he said.

The Ukrainian Pravda news outlet quoted the mayor as saying Sunday that they had partially succeeded at replacing the shift workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

“We have constant dialogues to rotate more often,” the mayor said, according to Pravda.

The International Atomic Energy Agency had said earlier Saturday that Russian shelling in Slavutych prevented workers at the closed plant from returning to their homes for about a week.

Ukrainian officials have said that the Russian takeover of the Chernobyl zone, the scene of a 1986 nuclear disaster, in the first days of the war jeopardized safety at the plant by disrupting shift changes of workers, including technical staffers responsible for managing the radioactive waste stored there.

Pannett reported from Sydney. Rick Noack contributed to this report from Paris.