> I can think of no good strategic reason to take over Chernobyl. If you're going to try to annex Ukraine, you're going to take Chernobyl. Of course there are

> I can think of no good strategic reason to take over Chernobyl. If you're going to try to annex Ukraine, you're going to take Chernobyl. Of course there are very good strategic reasons (including the location issue, as mentioned by another comment) to take over all nuclear facilities and electricity production in the nation you're trying to annex. What kind of annexation is it if you don't take the electricity production facilities and all the nuclear plants? If you do, what, leave all the nuclear power plants under the control of the Ukrainian Government and its proxies? It would be wildly irrational in terms of strategy. One of the first things you'd want to accomplish, if you can, is to seize utilities and be able to control their function (for all manner of reasons), as well as controlling anything nuclear related.