New Delhi, Feb 25 (IANS): Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted on Thursday evening that Russian troops are trying to capture the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the northern part of the Kiev region, RT reported.

The plant was the site of the 1986 disaster, which caused massive contamination of the surrounding areas and parts of Europe.

Zelensky claimed there was fighting in Chernobyl hours into Moscow's "special operation", which the Kremlin says was launched to protect the breakaway eastern republics in the Donbass.

"Our defenders are giving their lives so that the tragedy of 1986 will not be repeated," Zelensky tweeted, as per the report.

The advisor to Ukraine's interior minister and former MP, Anton Gerashchenko, wrote on social media that Russian forces have crossed into Ukraine from Belarus and entered the exclusion zone set up around the plant after the disaster, RT reported.

"The national guardsmen, who are protecting the storage of unsafe nuclear waste, are fighting hard," he claimed. Moscow has not confirmed or denied the situation so far.

When asked whether the Belarusian troops were also fighting in Ukraine, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said earlier on Thursday that "our troops are not taking any part in this operation".