KYIV – In what is becoming reminiscent of how long the USSR stayed silent during the Chornobyl disaster of 1986, it took the Russian-occupying Crimean authorities about 10 days to acknowledge a toxic chemical leak in the peninsula’s northern town of Armiansk.
More than 4,000 children and adults have been evacuated, and dozens have sought medical treatment in the border area between Ukraine-controlled Kherson Oblast and the Russia-occupied Ukrainian territory of Crimea since August 23 when sulfur trioxide was released into the air.