The reported incident came hours after President Donald Trump claimed that the "very bloody war" between Russia and Ukraine could be nearing its end after having talks with both sides in a Truth Social post shared early Thursday (February 13) morning.

"GREAT TALKS WITH RUSSIA AND UKRAINE YESTERDAY. GOOD POSSIBILITY OF ENDING THAT HORRIBLE, VERY BLOODY WAR!!!" Trump wrote in all caps.

Trump's post was shared one day after he revealed that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to "immediately" begin discussions to end the war, which is the largest and deadliest land conflict to have taken place in Europe since World War II. Trump, who has publicly claimed that the war would've never happened had he still been in office, said that he and Putin had expressed a willingness to visit each other's countries.

“We expect that he’ll come here, and I’ll go there, and we’re going to meet also, probably in Saudi Arabia,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday (February 12) via the New York Post before later adding that he planned to call Zelensky to notify him of the planned discussions.

“[W]e want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account. “No more lives should be lost!”

Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant located in Ukraine, was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history on April 26, 1986 and has since been used to contain nuclear waste. Humans were evacuated from Chernobyl and its surrounding areas to avoid extreme levels of radiation, while an estimated 900 stray dogs, many of whom were descendants of pets left behind during the mass evacuation, managed to live in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

In 2022, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters that the former nuclear power station has reached "abnormal" radiation levels amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"The radiation level, I would say, is abnormal," Grossi said as the United Nations commemorated the 36th anniversary of the disaster, which stemmed from a flawed reactor design operated by improperly trained personnel via the Mirror. "There have been some moments when the levels have gone up because of the movement of the heavy equipment that Russian forces were bringing here and when they left."

Mike McConnell