There's tons of uranium everywhere. You certainly don't have to put on the lead underpants and root around in Pripyat for it. Canada and Australia have massive amounts.
I know, I can pull uranium nodules out of the cliffs along the Jurassic Coast in Dorset UK. They are like blobs of clay, its the enrichment process which requires lots of it, so with all that enriched uranium in Chernobyl, why not flog it?
Do you really think there's any just lying around? The other reactors continued operating at Chernobyl after the accident - the last one didn't close until 2000. I seriously doubt there's piles of usable ready to go enriched uranium just lying there for the exclusion zone visitors to trip over.
Reactor grade: more than 19% 240Pu and less than 80% 239Pu
If the irradiation period has been short then the plutonium is weapons-grade (more than 93%).
Chernobyl's life span was cut short, so do we really know what things are like?
Edit.
Lets not forget being a member of NATO means nuclear weapon sharing, so is Russia not justified if it made a grab or made Ukraine a radioactive buffer zone?
Where does China come into all this with their new missiles after backing Russia?
Edit 2
Nato has become unpopular in Europe since the middle east wars and the ensuing migrant crisis. How do you know there isnt a concertive effort to rein in the Americans who spend the most on their military, not just within EU NATO members but within the wider global community? In other words are the Americans walking into a trap?
