The “Yama” (Pit) memorial is seen in the centre of Minsk May 5, 2015. The memorial is dedicated of the destruction of the Minsk ghetto during World War Two, when several hundred thousands of Jews were slaughtered. Belarus will mark Victory Day on May 9, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

In this photo taken Tuesday, June 23, 2015, a Ukrainian serviceman from the Kiev-2 volunteer battalion fires an weapon at a frontline in the village of Krymske, east Ukraine. Few places along the front line in east Ukraine see regular fighting as bitter as the village of Krymske. For now, Krymske is in the hands of Ukrainian government forces and the volunteer battalions that fight alongside them. (Photo by Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo)

The Chernobyl disaster was a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities of the Soviet Union. The Chernobyl disaster is the worst nuclear power plant accident in history in terms of cost and resulting deaths, and is one of only two classified as a level 7 event (the maximum classification) on the International Nuclear Event Scale (the other being the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011). Photo: Graffiti of a crying baby on a wall, Chernobyl Power Plant, Chernobyl, Ukraine. (Photo by Hans Neleman/Getty Images)

Ukraine's Leonid Stadnyk, who stands at a height of 2.53 metres (eight feet four inches) and may be considered the world's tallest living man, near his house in the village of Podolyantsi in Ukraine's Zhytomyr region, about 200 km (124 miles) from the capital Kiev, 2005. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Bogdana, 17, laughs with her boyfriend, Ivan, 19, in Brovary, Ukraine, Sunday, March 20, 2022. Russian forces pushed deeper into Ukraine's besieged and battered port city of Mariupol on Saturday, where heavy fighting shut down a major steel plant and local authorities pleaded for more Western help. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows Pope Francis holding a flag of Ukraine that was sent to him from the Ukrainian town of Bucha during the weekly general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall, in Vatican City, 06 April 2022. The pontiff lamented the “massacre of Bucha”, in the Kyiv suburb where dozens of bodies in civilian clothing have been found, and renewed his calls for an end to the war in Ukraine. (Photo by Vatican Media Handout/EPA/EFE)

An activist with a painted face symbolizing the count of days spent in captivity attends the Free Azov rally in support of the captured defenders of Mariupol on April 21, 2024 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The participants came out to remind about the Ukrainian soldiers who have been held in Russian captivity for more than two years. (Photo by Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

A monument to the character of Darth Vader from "Star Wars", which was rebuilt from a statue of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin, is seen in Odessa, Ukraine, October 23, 2015. The Internet Party of Ukraine's main candidate, a person named for the legendary "Star Wars" villain Darth Vader, campaigned in Odessa, cruising through town on a black van to the sound of Imperial March from "Star Wars" saga. (Photo by Yevgeny Volokin/Reuters)