Whether or not this bridge is still in place, or if it is part of Russian efforts to lay the groundwork for an intervention into Ukraine, its appearance so close to Belarus' border with that country can only raise new questions about the actual purpose of these "exercises." Furthermore, the decision to erect it within the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve is extremely curious. There are areas of the Pripyat River, which runs from Ukraine across nearly the length of southern Belarus toward the Polish border, that are not inside this zone, not to mention other rivers and bodies of water where troops could practice bridging operations elsewhere in the country.
In addition, while the exact health risks that troops operating in this part of the reserve are unclear, it's very likely that some work had to have been done initially to determine that the area was relatively safe. Earlier this month, Ukrainian security forces
conducted their own training in the city of Pripyat, which is situated near the now-defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant and
has been a ghost town ever since the disaster there, but only in a specific area that had been checked to make sure it was clear of radioactive hotspots.
At the time, Ukrainian officials
said that this exercise had only been carried out in Pripyat because it presented an ideal real-world urban area to practice in that also happened to be completely devoid of civilians. They said that there were no indications of any threats to the Chernobyl plant, specifically, or the area in general.
