Inside Ukraine’s recaptured Chernobyl exclusion zone with radioactive trenches that ‘struck down dozens of Russians’

NEW footage reveals trenches dug by Russian soldiers at Chernobyl, reportedly leaving them struck down with radiation sickness.

Vladimir Putin’s troops occupied site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, after they captured it in the early days of their Ukraine invasion.

Dozens of Russian soldiers are said to have been struck down with acute radiation sickness and were taken in seven busses back across the border in nearby Belarus.

The site of the 1986 nuclear tragedy in northern Ukraine was captured in the opening days of the war, sparking fears of a major radioactive disaster as a result of heavy fighting around the plant.

Russian troops dug trenches in the highly toxic Red Forest zone, just a few miles west of the plant, but have now retreated as part of a pull-out from around the capital Kyiv.

Drone video shows mounds of disturbed earth and fortifications dug on the outskirts of the Red Forest, the most radioactively contaminated part of the zone around Chernobyl.

As the camera zooms out from the abandoned Russian positions the huge steel dome built to cover the destroyed reactor can be seen in the distance.

The first Ukrainian soldiers have now been pictured walking through the Chernobyl site since the Russians retreated.

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Pictures show scenes of devastation with abandoned tanks and destroyed bridges.

Putin’s forces have with withdrawn after losing thousands of soldiers in intense fighting around the Ukrainian capital.

Chernobyl lies 80 miles north of Kyiv on a strategic route into the capital from Belarus, Putin's puppet state where he has stationed 30,000 troops.

Soon after the war began, Ukraine lost all contact with Chernobyl, sparking fears of a potentially dangerous loss of power at the site.

According to workers at the site, when Russian soldiers first arrived as the site, the drove their tanks and armoured vehicles without radiation protection through the majorly radioactive area.

That also led to the vehicles kicking up huge clouds of radioactive dust.

A Chernobyl employee branded their actions as "suicidal" because the radioactive dust they inhaled was likely to cause internal radiation in their bodies.

Reports of radiation sickness come after US military sources claimed Russian forces were withdrawing from Chernobyl nuclear site and walking back towards Belarus in a major climbdown.

"Chernobyl is [an] area where they [the Russians] are beginning to reposition some of their troops," a Pentagon official said.