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38 years ago, a disaster occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (ChNPP), when the fourth power unit exploded. As a result — dozens of people died on the spot, mostly station employees and rescue workers. Thousands suffered from radiation exposure. The USSR authorities tried to hide information about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, liquidators were sent to the zone without warning about the final destination. After tens of years, a disaster could happen again at the station, this time —due to the actions of the Russian army, informs FREEHOME.
Exactly 38 years ago, the biggest man-made disaster happened — accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. At the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a powerful explosion rang out, the reactor was destroyed in seconds.
According to estimates, the total power of the explosion was more than 100 times greater than the power of the nuclear weapons used in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Hundreds of thousands of people risked their lives to prevent, and soon to minimize, the consequences of the accident.
Tens of thousands died, and even more people suffered serious health problems due to radiation exposure. Including — the engineer of the management of the fourth power unit Oleksiy Breus.
The man was the last one to press the button on the control panel of the fourth power unit after the explosion.
"In the evening after the shift on April 26, when I left the block — undressed in the bathroom in order to carry out sanitation, to put it simply, to wash. Before that, I discovered on the devices that my hand was not washed, the palm and thigh, right leg remained dirty... That is, the protection was clearly insufficient, because it got on the skin. And I was surprised to see that my whole body has a beautiful bronze color, a thick brown tan." — Oleksiy Breus, an engineer and liquidator of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl NPP, recalls.
After the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the population of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia suffered the most from radiation. Citizens of other countries also felt the impact. However, the USSR tried with all its might to hide the consequences of the disaster.
As the retired colonel of the internal service Mykhailo Svyatnenko reported, the Soviet authorities blocked telephone communication so that eyewitnesses of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant could not tell others about it. The first report about the accident at the station appeared in the Soviet media only three days later — in the evening of April 28.
Engineer Oleksiy, who was supplying water to the reactor on the day of the accident, received a dose of radiation exposure that was almost 25 times higher than the norm.
"In the premises of the block, the level of radiation in some places was about one hundred x-rays per hour. This means that in an hour a person receives close to a lethal dose of radiation. On the territory of the nuclear plant, in the direction where the reactor collapsed on the industrial site, the radiation level reached 2 x-rays per hour." — emphasized Oleksii Breus.
The disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was man-made and had enormous consequences.
Russian troops, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, could have brought about another disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant with their own hands.
"They did not comply with the requirements of sanitary and transit regime, requirements of radiation safety. They walked without dividing the territories into a clean zone — dirty area Reactive pollution was carried from the dirty area to the clean one in front of ABK-1 (administrative and household building, — ed.) and in other places", — Serhii Kondratenko, Deputy Director of the Technical State Specialized Enterprise (SSP) of ChNPP, says.
After the Russian military seized the station for more than three weeks, they did not allow the rotation of the personnel that should be changed.
Subsequently, due to continuous work, physical and moral fatigue, the employees of the ChNPP could not continue to carry out repairs and maintenance of the equipment.
At that time, about 50 units of military equipment and about a thousand soldiers of the Russian Federation were stationed on the territory of the Chornobyl NPP, the head of the State Agency of Ukraine for Management of the Exclusion Zone reported.
"They had a transshipment point here. They were sent to Kyiv, they were "burned" there, some returned, some did not. Their mood was constantly deteriorating. Mostly in the evenings, when they got drunk, it was unpleasant to be here and it was unclear what to expect from them." — notes Oleksandr Cherepanov, an employee of the radioactive waste management department at the ChNPP.
"There were a lot of them: there was a lot of equipment, there were a lot of people. They slept everywhere — on the ground, on windowsills, on cabinets, on tables, wherever someone found a minimal place. Because it was cold, it was still February, so they hid in buildings, and in buildings where they found a place, they slept there." — says Lyudmila Kozak, an engineer of the physical protection service of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
In addition to the crimes committed by the Russians when they captured the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, they showed their true colors again during the retreat.
As The Washington Post writes, when the Russian troops left Chernobyl, they looted the nuclear power plant and a unique laboratory that collects data. Damage is estimated at tens of millions of dollars.
The Russians stole 698 computers, 344 cars, 1 radiation dosimeters and almost all fire extinguishing systems.
"We came here with the management to see what exactly was left here. They saw such an unpleasant picture. Everything was destroyed, doors were broken, computers were opened, servers were hacked. A lot of new dosimetric equipment, which came to us at international facilities, has disappeared... The server has completely disappeared. The rack where the server equipment was located was also gone, as I understand it, it was also taken away." — said Oleksandr Barsukov, deputy director of the measuring center of the DSP "Ecocenter".
By exposing Ukrainian personnel at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to radiation danger, the Russian military put their lives at risk. Due to ignorance or following the orders of the commanders, the soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation set up their positions in areas with an elevated radiation background, as well as in the so-called red forest.
Yaroslav Emelianenko, a member of the Public Council for the Management of the Exclusion Zone, reported that the irradiated soldiers were taken to the Belarusian Center for Radiation Medicine in Gomel.
The adviser to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Ukraine reported that it was known about the dead, as well as dozens of military personnel in serious condition.
