Not if the Ukraine was making material to make nuclear weapons with.
The whole plant was entombed in thousands of tons of concrete. There is no way you can make anything useful from that mess.
“Not if the Ukraine was making material to make nuclear weapons with.”
Could the Ukraine make a nuclear weapon from commercial U.S. reactor fuel? Not easily. It is enriched with uranium-235 but not nearly enough to make it weapons-grade. the Ukraine has cake in its country and could use it instead located at the Pridniprovskyi Chemical Plant in central Ukraine and is the most radioactive place in Europe.
It isn’t just that. Many seem to believe that radioactive matter has a short or limited shelf life and because the news media grew bored with talking about it, the problem was solved.
At the Chernobyl site there are an estimated 20,000 spent fuel rods from the 4 nuclear reactors that once operated at Chernobyl that are now stored in a cooling pool called Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility 1. The rods remain radioactive even once they’re no longer usable as reactor fuel, and the water keeps their temperature down and provides some shielding against escaping radiation. But those pools rely on electric pumps to keep cool water circulating.
If those pumps shut down, which the Russian army apparently did, the water will boil away, leaving the spent fuel rods exposed and overheating to the point of melting. Radiation leaks will be the end result. Ukraine and Belarus would be at especially high risk in that scenario, but depending on the wind and on the amount of radiation released, radioactive material could reach Russia and parts of western Europe as alpha and beta residual. Both are extremely harmful and can cause sickness and death. Alpha particles are the most harmful internal hazard next to gamma rays that can immediately penetrate the body. Beta will cause internal burns.
wy69
ya beat me to it
The reactor that exploded was an RBMK type, which could be used to make material for nuclear weapons. Can't remember what the other reactors at the site were, but I'm sure they were probably the same when they were built. I'm assuming they were converted to a different type after the accident, but what Ukraine has done with them since Russian control ended, is anybody's guess.
Those reactors aren’t very good at making highly fissionable materials.
L