[5] On 16 February 2022, satellite imagery showed Russian troops building pontoon bridges over rivers on the Belarusian side of the exclusion zone, the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve.

Nevertheless, the agency recognised that lack of electricity was likely to deteriorate radiation safety, specifically through the increased workload and stress on the 210 personnel working without shift changes at the site.

The IAEA has also expressed concern about the interruption of communications and the capacity of personnel to make decisions without undue pressure.

[17] Six days later, Slavutych, the town constructed to house workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant following the disaster, was attacked by Russian forces.

[17] Reuters reported that the Russian forces used the Red Forest as a route for their convoys, kicking up clouds of radioactive dust.

[31] On 31 March 2022, a Ukrainian council member of the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management claimed on his Facebook page that Russian troops were regularly removed from the exclusion zone surrounding Chernobyl and taken to the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Radiation Medicine and Human Ecology in Gomel, Belarus.

[33] On 6 April, images and videos of trenches, foxholes and other defensive structures at the Red Forest surfaced on the internet and news outlets.

[17] Following the return of Ukrainian control, significant damage to parts of the plant's offices was noted, including graffiti and smashed windows.

The Washington Post further estimated that around 135 million US dollars worth of equipment had been destroyed, namely computers, vehicles, and radiation dosimeters.

[42] The International Atomic Energy Agency stated that there were "no casualties nor destruction at the industrial site" but that it was "of vital importance that the safe and secure operations of the nuclear facilities in that zone should not be affected or disrupted in any way".

Former American Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia Evelyn Farkas said that the Russian forces "want to surround the capital" and that they "certainly don't want loose nuclear material floating around" in case of a Ukrainian insurgency.

[44][45] The exclusion zone is important for containing fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986; as such, Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs adviser Anton Herashchenko said that "if the occupiers' artillery strikes hit the nuclear waste storage facility, radioactive dust may cover the territories of Ukraine, Belarus and the EU countries".