Psyop about Russian deaths from digging trenches in Chornobyl was aimed at creating panic

Yaroslav Yemelianenko, a member of the public council of Ukraine's State Agency on Exclusion Zone Management, said this on Espreso TV.

“Everything that was spread in the media about how the Russians would die from what they were doing was a psychological operation to create panic on the enemy's side. When we said that everyone who dug trenches in the Red Forest would die there, in fact, the radiation level in the Chornobyl zone is not that high even near the forest where they dug the trenches. But when this information went out of the country and was broadcast on all channels, it caused panic, which forced Russians to leave the Chornobyl zone,” he said.

However, Yemelianenko noted that the Russian troops did harmed their health. 

“If we talk about the Red Forest and radioactive dust, it is not very large. They harmed themselves more when they were looting our laboratories when they took out test sources of ionizing radiation – very highly radioactive materials,” the member of the public council summarized.