Few places conjure more foreboding than Chernobyl, the site of the deadly 1986 nuclear disaster. So alarm bells rang in the West when Russian forces seized the decommissioned power plant in the early hours of their invasion of Ukraine on Thursday.
Why would Russia make a radioactive wasteland one of its very first targets in Ukraine?
While the full answer may be known only to top officials in Moscow, the site happens to lie along one of the most direct paths to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“The location is important because of where it sits,” retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe, said in an interview. "If Russian forces were attacking Kyiv from the north, Chernobyl is right there on the way, almost in the way."
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
Read the full story at NBCNews.com.
This is a live update. Click here for complete coverage of the crisis in Ukraine
