Russian forces 'walking away' from Chernobyl, heading to Belarus: Pentagon official

Russian troops are beginning to pull out of the Chernobyl nuclear facility and moving into Belarus, a Pentagon official said on Wednesday.

The retreat comes a day after Russian officials said military operations in the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv would scale back and over a month after Vladimir Putin's army seized the site of the catastrophic 1986 nuclear disaster.

"Chernobyl is [an] area where they are beginning to reposition some of their troops — leaving, walking away from the Chernobyl facility and moving into Belarus," the U.S. Defense official said, according to a report.

"We think that they are leaving, I can't tell you that they're all gone," the official cautioned.