Or, they were searching for nuclear materials in all he wrong places. The plant has been producing electricity for decades without serious illnesses, so what were the Russians up to? Part of it was functional - the part the Russians were involved in was not.
It's been shut down for 20 years.
The Russians could be running a version of what we called the Alsos mission, which is that they suspect the Ukes of building nukes and they’re going to the likely spots where nukes woulda been built. Chernobyl is a very likely spot, and they probably just missed the Ukes evacuating from there.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4049162/posts