Chernobyl

It's April 28, 1986. A bus pulled into a deserted street in Fawzmark, a rural town approximately two hours drive to the north of Sweden's capital Stockholm. Cliff Robinson, a 30-year-old engineer, thanks the driver and hops off. The early morning sunshine is doing little for the temperature and a bitter blast of wind forces him to pull his hood around his head. It's icy on the foot, so he steps wearily away from the bus stop towards his place of work, the Fawzmark nuclear power plant, where he's in charge of monitoring radiation levels. It's a sprawling sight, comprising many interlocking buildings joined by raised walkways. The two distinctive towers that normally overlook the plant have been swallowed by the early morning mist. Once inside Robinson's growling stomach leads him to the staff canteen, where he pours a bowl of cereal and sits down to eat. When he's finished, he walks towards the washroom in order to brush his teeth. The journey takes him down a narrow corridor, his footsteps echo off the drab concrete floor and walls, as he approaches the radiation detection machine, similar in appearance to an airport metal detector and walks through. Its lights paint the dull walls red, and it emits a shrill whale, so incongruous with the almost empty plant that Robinson jumps with surprise. He steps back and the alarm falls silent. He tries again, but the results are the same. He thinks carefully. He hasn't been in the control room yet, where he might possibly have absorbed some radiation. There is simply no cause for the alarm to be going off unless something is wrong. He steps towards the machine one last time, holding his breath. This time, nothing happens. He chocos to himself and makes a mental note to inform his superiors of the faulty machine. Then, he carries on down the corridor to brush his teeth. At just after 7.30am, he begins his work, which today entails monitoring the efficiency of newly modified reactor 1. A few hours later, he happens to be passing that same corridor and that same yowling machine and finds a line of disgruntled workers. Puzzled, he asks one of the men for his shoe and takes it to a laboratory to run a few tests. The results are surprising. The shoe is emitting radioactive elements not normally found at Fawsmark. Robinson's first thought is nuclear war. He quickly phones his boss, who passes the news to the Swedish radiation safety authority. The planters evacuated and Robinson, along with the other workers, are herded into the hastily erected tents for monitoring. Once they're cleared, they stand at the distance, stamping their feet and rubbing their hands together to keep warm. They watch as a team of men in bright yellow hazmat suits scurry around the site like a colony of ants. The hand held, the simulators they carry, confirm that there was a higher level of radiation than normal. Though it's quickly apparent that the contamination is not the fault of the plant or its workers. In the next few hours, other Scandinavian nuclear plants begin reporting the same strange contamination. It's hypothesized that thanks to a brisk wind, the dangerous particles may be coming from abroad, namely from the southeast, from the Soviet Union. When enquiries are made, the Soviets deny any knowledge of a nuclear disaster. They're unsure why Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland are experiencing these problems, but are ters in their communication that it is not their problem. It isn't until a few days later that the Soviets finally release details of what happened at Chernobyl. At first, the facts are scant and the incident is downplayed. Officials don't want to show their hands to the rest of the world, but as deadly radiation is blown towards Europe, pressure builds. What happened at Chernobyl is considered now to be the worst nuclear disaster in history. Although only 31 people lost their lives within the first few days, the long-term impact is still the subject of bitter disagreement. Poisonous radiation is thought to have caused thousands of casualties, and the cleaner costs billions of pounds in the Soviet Union and beyond. Even now, the exclusion zone is one of the most polluted and heavily patrolled regions in the world. But what caused the catastrophe in the first place? Why did the Soviet Union try to keep it a secret? And what impact would the events of this remote region have on the Soviet Union and the wider world in the years to come? I'm Paul McGann, and this is a short history of Chernobyl. The idea of a nuclear power plant in Ukraine is first voiced by Alexander Sherban, deputy head of the Ukrainian government in 1965. The previous years saw the launch of two more nuclear power stations in neighboring Russia, the largest state in the USSR which governs the Ukrainian Republic. Now Sherban lobbies for Ukraine to have its own electricity generating facilities as a matter of economic efficiency. Thankfully Moscow agrees, and though they cannot grant him the three stations he requests, they do allow him one. A year later a committee has formed, with the express purpose of locating a suitable site for the plant. Sixteen locations are proposed, but they quickly settle on an area near Kropachi, in the northwest of Ukraine. It's far enough away from populated towns and cities, and close enough to the Pripyat River, which would be essential for the plant's day-to-day running. The committee appoint Viktor Brukanov, a 35-year-old Uzbek engineer, to oversee the construction of the plant. Sergei Ploki, his author of Chernobyl, History of a Tragedy. Brukanov is a young engineer and young manager, who has experience at working at one of such plants in Ukraine. And what is especially attractive about him is that he not only had at that point experience working at the power stations, called power stations, but also he had experience of building new facilities. And that's what they want. They want a young person open who can learn on their job, and who has experience both working in the energy sector and in the construction industry, and he takes the job. Brukanov is also in charge of the infrastructure needed for the plant's workers. A town called Pripyat is built approximately 3 kilometers to the northwest of the plant. The budget for the town is almost unlimited, and so the workers at Chernobyl live in relative luxury compared to other towns in the Soviet Union. Local shops give access to sort after foods like cheese and bread, on wide boulevards lying with brightly colored flowers. As the town grows, it even boasts an Olympic standard swimming pool. After seven years of construction, the completion of the first reactor is a day of celebration. Famous faces from the Soviet regime descend on Chernobyl, keen to join in the merriment. Agents from the KGB, Russia's secret police patrol the site, keen to make sure that the day runs smoothly. As the cameras flash, Brukanov smiles happy and relieved. He knows that the price of failure would have been dismissal from his role or worse in incarceration in one of the Soviet Union's infamous Goulide prisons. Despite missing the deadline for completion by almost two years, today he receives praise and gratitude from his superiors. But already, they are keen to make sure that he knows reactor one is just the start of the project. Later in the day, finally alone, Brukanov roams the concrete corridors of the plant that he has created. He marvels at the sheer scale of it, running a hand along the recently painted pale green walls. He is rightly proud, but there are aspects that he is not so pleased with. He notices that some of the doorways have been installed at an odd angle. Bent nails protrude from walls, snagging his jacket and tearing the material. He is able to shrug these office simple eyesores, problems that won't affect the day-to-day running of the plant. But as he gazes up at the reactor, he is filled with worry. So, the authorities charged KGB with the task of monitoring the quality of work that was done on the reactors in particular. And they were reporting about all sorts of violations of the technological rules using a run type of the, let's say, concrete to build the reactor and so on and so forth. But the main problem was not even that, the main problem was that Russian to launch the reactors before a particular deadline. A number of things were not done, were not completed. Despite Brukanov's misgivings about the readiness of the plant, it signed off a satisfactory and he becomes its director of operations. Under his stewardship, it takes just four years to connect three more reactors to the grid. Officially named the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Plant after the founder of the USSR. The facility performs well. Moscow's propaganda machine waits no time in exploiting its success, proclaiming it to be one of the best in the industry. It generates approximately 10% of all Ukraine's electricity. But despite its high standing in Moscow, accidents and malfunctions are common. In 1982, a faulty cooling valve causes a partial meltdown in reactor one. No one is killed, but a dangerous amount of radiation is released into the atmosphere. The Soviets though have no intention of publicizing their shortcomings and details of the accident do not come to light until many years later. It takes eight months to make the reactor operational again. In 1985, the plant overfulfills its production quota by nearly 10%. It's an amazing accomplishment, achieved in part by reducing the time allotted for repairs. With planned maintenance of reactor four on the horizon, Brukanov decides that essential small fixes can wait until then. It's a risky strategy. And no one feels the pressure from Moscow more than he does. Though he can't know it yet, only six months later, the decision will prove to be a costly one. It's 11pm on April 25, 1986. And atoli Diyatlov, the 55-year-old deputy chief engineer of the Chernobyl plant, hurries into the bustling control room of Unit Four. He tucks his grey hair into the regulation white cap and fastens the buttons on his matching gown. Expecting the turbine test to have finished earlier in the day, he demands a progress report from the subordinate. He's told that while various minor shutdowns have been performed as requested, the test had been postponed earlier in the day due to a power outage at another plant. He's unsurprised yet still annoyed. He'd expected to spend an easy night shift, monitoring the after-effects of the checks, and clearing some paperwork. Instead the preparations for the test are only just getting underway again, and the room has a flurry of activity. Superiors hurry around barking orders to their teams, which are dutifully carried out. While Diyatlov casts his eyes over to the Vast Grey control console with its 4,000 dials and displays, his second and command, Akimov, is ready to begin the procedure. He carefully lowers the power output of the reactor so that the turbine test can finally begin. Suddenly, a red light flashes on one of the control panels. inexplicably the water supply to the reactor has fallen, causing power to drop rapidly. Engineers scrambled to stabilize the dying reactor. They quickly stem the loss, but the power output continues to fluctuate every few minutes. They're unable to keep it at the required level to commence the test. Diyatlov though, is in no mood to postpone yet again. The operation is already behind schedule, and he will never hear the end of it from his superiors if it's delayed further. He orders the emergency signals to be overwritten, and for more water to be pumped into the reactor. Despite the flashing warning signs and silence to emergency alarms, Akimov also believes that the test can still go ahead. He orders the operators to begin. At 1.23 am on April 26, 1986, the turbine test of Chernobyl's reactor number 4 commences. Immediately, the power output skyrockets, countless alarms are triggered, and the roomy rops with work as shouting out the unprecedented readings on their consoles. After only 36 seconds, Akimov orders an emergency shutdown. His assistant rushes across the room and slams his hand on the circular red button. 178 control rods move automatically into the heart of the reactor. They're made of boron, and should help to stabilize the spiraling reactor. But the tips of the control rods are graphite, a volatile material normally used to provoke a nuclear reaction. Akimov watches the dial that displays the reactor's power. The quivering needle jumps to 10 times the normal output. Inside the reactor, thousands of liters of water reach boiling point in a matter of seconds, producing an enormous amount of steam. Steam with nowhere to go. In nearby Pripyat, 23-year-old Lieutenant Vladimir Pravik is sitting at his desk in the fire service headquarters. The night shift has been quiet, so he's taking advantage of the time to write a letter to his wife, who's living elsewhere while she studies. Pravik is just asking after his two-week-old daughter, when two loud blasts shatter his concentration. The first explosion really did completely destroy the fuel channels. Then the second explosion followed, which apparently was much more powerful. And we know that for sure, because we know that from the memoirs of the operators. Pravik gets to his feet, the letter forgotten and rushes to the window. He watches, as a fireball explodes to the southeast, the exact direction of the Chernobyl power plant. A dark mushroom cloud blossoms into the star-filled sky, as he and his crew rush to their fire trucks. It takes five minutes for the fire crew to arrive at Chernobyl. As they drive up the wide road towards the plant, it's not immediately obvious where the problem lies. There is no sign of the fire. One and two loom above them, rounding these monoliths, they met with a fearsome sight. What the saw was that there was no part of the building that housed the reactor, but other than that, they didn't know much. The first task was to figure out what happened, where the fire was. And that was Pravik's task, and he then once he realized that the main danger at that point was the machine hall, the roof of the machine hall. Was half of that was destroyed, half of that was on fire, and there was a lot of oil and other inflammable substances in the machine hall. So through the machine hall, the fire could go to reactor number three, reactor number two, reactor number one. So potentially there could be accidents at other reactors as well. So that was the absolute priority and that's what Pravik was dealing with. This is bad news, of course, but nothing worse than what Pravik has had to deal with elsewhere in the past. At this point, it appears to be simply another fire, albeit a big one. Teams are assigned to the machine hall roof. Once that's looked after, attention turns elsewhere. Once Pravik was able to put his people in the key positions on the roof and around the machine hall, he got closer to reactor number four. He went there to help his fellow firefighters. And that was the roof of reactor number three, right at the place where the roof of reactor number four used to be. So they were able to look really into the exploded reactor number four and got enormous, enormous levels of radiation. When further backup crews arrive from Kiev three hours later, they find the first responders in bad shape. Some are complaining about a metallic taste in their mouths. Others are vomiting where they stand. Soon the wailing of sirens can be heard in the distance. Before long, ambulances start to arrive. Firefighters are reluctantly dragged away from the scene. They're loaded onto metal gurneys and driven at speed to the hospital in Pripyat. Among the stricken men is Vladimir Pravik. He feels dizzy and nauseous. syriose, drenched in sweat. But worse than that is the dawning recognition of what the symptoms mean. He spends the night in a hospital bed, pins and needles torment his skin and his eyes are almost swollen shut. But apart from this, his condition is stable and doctors are happy. He even manages to dose off for a few hours. At 7am, he's awoken by a raucous cheer. Several of his fellow firefighters are standing at the windows. Gingely getting out of bed, he hobbles over to see that in the distance, the flames have died away. Brimming with relief, he adds his horse voice to the battle cry. They've won. But, back at the Chernobyl site, spirits among the operators are not so high. Brukanov receives a phone call in the middle of the night and is asked to make his way to the plant. This is not standard practice. It tells him that something has gone monumentally wrong. According to his own recollections, the moment when he approached the plant and he saw the amount of damage that was done, his first thought was that he would end up in prison for that. And probably that thought also very much dominated his behaviour because he was, and the normal circumstances not very talkative. Now, during that night, it was difficult really to get much out of him. Evacuation of Pripyat, a town of 45,000 people, is discussed early on. But initial data shows that the amount of radiation leaking from the damaged reactor isn't overly concerning. Not wishing to appear alarmist, the hastily assembled disaster committee decides not to evacuate. It's not until much later that those first readings, recorded by poor quality decimators, are revealed to be wildly inaccurate. At 9pm on the evening of April 26, the committee is forced to reconsider. Three violent explosions caused by further nuclear reactions in the core of the reactor send ruined fuel rods and glowing chunks of graphite high into the air. It may look like a rather spectacular firework show to the people of Pripyat, but to the scientists, it's a warning shot they can no longer ignore. 36 hours after the initial explosion on the afternoon of April 27, a song on the radio is interrupted. Those walking the streets of Pripyat, or enjoying coffee with friends in the town square, can hear the same announcement, booming from one of the many speakers that have been hastily erected during the night. A calm female voice tells the residents of Pripyat that, due to the events of Chernobyl, the city is being temporarily evacuated. Once the evacuation was announced, the majority of the people certainly followed the instructions and the instructions were that they were living just for two or three days and they were asked to take only absolute necessity, money, documents and food for the first location maybe for one snack or two snacks or something like that. And the biggest concern at that point was that the animals were not allowed on the buses that were evacuating people. So people were either trying to smuggle cats under their coats or were trying to figure out how a dog would survive for three days without people being in a round. Some are even looking forward to it. Others were thinking that, okay, this is a wonderful opportunity to have a three day break. The weather was very warm and very nice and they were moving people into the nearby villages. So some people were looking at that as a wonderful opportunity to spend additional three days outdoors. Despite the urgency, families enter buses in an orderly fashion. An hour after the announcement, 1,125 buses set off from street corners around the city. By 4.30pm, the evacuation is complete. While Pripyat empties, the quest to tame the damaged reactor at Chernobyl begins. As night falls, a black military helicopter hovers over Unit 4. Its door slides open and one of the crew leans out. The dense smoke billowing from the reactor stings his eyes and the stench of burning fuel reaches his nostrils. He heaves a heavy Hessian sack filled with sand and boron from the floor and drops it blindly in the direction of the reactor. The intention is to neutralize the reactions inside Unit 4 by preventing cool air from reaching the burning fuel. Over the next few days, the helicopters keep coming, dropping bag after bag. But it's not until the operation is called off eight days later. That scientists realize that instead of fixing the problem, they've created a new one. There only an estimated one in five of the bags actually hit their target. Those that do have insulated the reactor, raising the temperature even higher. This, coupled with the water pumped into the destroyed reactor by the firefighters, means that an explosion is highly likely. An explosion so powerful that it would most likely wipe out the whole of Europe. Clans on how to avoid a three to five megaton blast are drawn up in Moscow. Everyone involved believes that solving this problem equates to a suicide mission. Even so, workers from the plant are asked to volunteer. They're offered monetary incentives and the promise that their families will be cared for. Despite the overwhelming odds against their own survival, three men stood forward. It's the 4th of May, 1986. Alexey Annenko, a 26 year old mechanical engineer at the plant, sits his way into a snog-fitting wetsuit. He checks his torches working, before leaving the makeshift tent and crossing a patch of rough concrete littered with weeds. At a corrugated iron door he stands alongside his colleagues, Valeriy Baspalov and Boris Baranov. He turns his face to the sky, wondering if this will be the last time he will feel the sun on it. The enormity of the task has certainly been made clear. The men must locate a specific pipe and release a valve in order to drain the water below the reactor. If they fail and the radioactive material reacts with the water, it will trigger an explosion of unprecedented scale. They pass around a bottle of vodka, each taking a hearty swig, then pulling their gas masks over their faces, they disappear into the darkness. Annenko leads the way. He climbs carefully down a set of rostling steps until he reaches the basement. The water is knee-deep and as he sloshes through the radioactive liquid, his decimator crackles constantly. He checks the reading to find that after less than a minute it has already reached the maximum level. He slips it back onto his belt and decides to ignore it. The beam of his torch illuminates a cavernous space and sweeps over innumerable pipes. Methodically, the team check each one. As they travel deeper into the room, their spire of torch begins to flicker. He knocks it gently against his thigh twice, but the beam fades and then dies away completely. Now the task is even more difficult. The heat is stifling. Sweat pools on their foreheads and fogs their gas masks. The three men pick up the pace. They rule out pipe after pipe and against all odds eventually find what they need. Breathless, they begin twisting the valves. Their muscles ache but they carry on. Eventually, they reward it by the hiss of escaping water. Annenko sags in relief. They've done it. He signals that it's time to go and leads them back towards the steps. They use the rickety banister to pull themselves up to ground level and annenko hammers on the door three times. The door is pulled open and the men spill out onto the concrete plaza to a cacophony of applause. But no one is under any illusions about what the trio's act of hero is a might have done to their bodies. After a moment of quiet, they're pulled to their feet and hurried to awaiting ambulance. Incredibly, the men dubbed the Chernobyl divers by a wrapped media. would go on to live long, healthy lives. But jubilation at avoiding a world threatening explosion is short-lived. Soon enough, another problem known as China Syndrome comes to the fore. China Syndrome comes from an inside joke within the nuclear industry. The scenario envisioned by China Syndrome is that the active zone of the reactor can burn its way through the earth and then emerge on the other side of the globe going through the center of the earth. And the other side of the globe has been imagined as China. So the accident that happens, let's say in the US, something like that ends up also affecting what is happening in China. Outside of this use for this term as a joke, the term acquired also a different meaning. And what that meant was that the radiation and the active zone of the reactor it burns its way to the level of the underground waters. And poisons, it radiates the water. And the water then gets into the rivers and the rivers get into the seas and gets into the oceans. A plan is put in place. They will construct a thick concrete platform under the reactor in order to keep the contaminated water from seeping through into the river. On May 14th, close to 400 miners, summoned from all over Ukraine, gather at Chernobyl. They begin digging a tunnel underneath reactor 4. But after three weeks of uncontrolled reaction, the site is critically unstable. The use of machinery is too dangerous. Every ounce of earth must be excavated by hand. The arduous work rips fingernails and blisters weathered skin. But the men understand mistakes and work through the pain. Temperatures and the tunnels reach 50 degrees centigrade. A foreman, drenched in sweat and worried about his team, asks a boss from Moscow for a mechanical fan. But the shaft is too precarious and his request is denied. When that same superior comes to check progress an hour later, he is confronted by the site of 200 burly miners, completely naked. He walks away, delegating to one of his comrades, effectively immediately. When the tunnel is complete, pipes are installed in its wall. They bulge and threaten to break free from their supports, as ton after ton of concrete passes through them. Before long a concrete platform is erected underground to help support reactor 4. To bolster this defense, 25 tons of liquid nitrogen are injected underneath the reactor every day to freeze the soil. One scientist is happy, the China syndrome is no longer an imminent threat. They begin to think about the clear up of the heavily contaminated area around the plant. Close to 600,000 men are drafted into health. Most of them are from the Soviet army, and barely have time to say goodbye to their families. Forests around the plant are torn down in order to eliminate flora and fauna from the food chain. Thousands of men with shovels scrape off the top layer of soil and bury the contamination several feet below ground. Animals, both wild and domesticated, are also destroyed. The work is hard, not just physically, but emotionally. The most challenging part of the cleanup takes place on the roof of reactor 3. There, men are tasked with shoveling pieces of radioactive graphite and tossing them to the ground below. Each person can only collect one piece of debris to avoid being subjected to a catastrophic dose of radiation. Knowing the risks, they wear lead aprons and an additional piece of lead inserted between two layers of underwear to protect their genitals. In many cases though, the precautions are inadequate. Those who die are wrapped in plastic sheets and laid to rest in zinc coffins. They're lowered into mass graves and covered with layers of cement. Their grieving families get no chance to say goodbye. By the end of May, radiation at the site is still perilously high. A structure is planned around the reactor to help contain it. First, a layer of concrete is laid over the contaminated ground. Then a thick concrete wall is built around the reactor. It won't be until the end of November 1986, six months after the initial explosion, that the sarcophagus is complete. Close to 200,000 men are believed to have played some part in the construction process. As the construction teams pack up and leave, radiation levels in the area will be monitored. Officials in Moscow will be pleased that the structure seems to be doing its job. This, however, is the only thing they'll be happy about. In February 1986, a few months before the Chernobyl disaster, Mikhail Gorbachev spoke at his first party conference as the new leader of the Soviet Union. He introduced the idea of "glasnost" or "openness". He conceded that in the past the Soviet Union had been too secretive with information. As its new leader, he was willing to be more transparent with not only his own citizens, but also the rest of the world. In the aftermath of the explosion, this sentiment comes back to haunt him. Even if the USSR refuses to admit the problem on the international stage, the truth can stay hidden only for so long. The fact that there were very high levels of radiation was first announced to the world not by the Soviet Union, but by the authorities in Sweden. And then information started to come that the levels of radiation were high, not only at the nuclear power plant, but another part of Sweden. And in Finland as well, so they looked at the direction of the wind. It became clear that something terrible happened on the territory of the Soviet Union. They turned to the Soviet counter-parts and there was denial. So only on the third day the Soviet media announced and made very short-terrest announcement that an accident took place at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. And even after that the information was really minimal. And that made a lot of people in Europe in particular quite upset. The response from the rest of Europe and further afield is understandably one of frustration. West Germany immediately demands the closure of all nuclear power plants in the Soviet Union. Italy refuses to trade with Ukraine for bidding them from docking at any Italian ports. US President Ronald Reagan offers his condolences to the people of Ukraine, but attacks Soviet decision makers for their lack of communication. A radioactive catastrophe of this scale should not be considered an internal matter, he says, especially in the spirit of Glasnost. Gorbachev started to reform the political system of the Soviet Union and allowed elements of glass lists or openness in the Soviet Union. So among the first questions that people were asking were about Chernobyl, please show us the map, tell us what really happened, who was responsible, but also most importantly how big is the danger to us, to our children, to our society, to our towns, to our cities. And that information was not forthcoming. Gorbachev does not take the criticism lightly. In a hastily arranged press conference, he hits back at Reagan. He declares that the radioactive material thrown into the air by Chernobyl is minuscule compared to that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. In fact, the Chernobyl disaster deposits 400 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere than America's atomic bomb. Keen, to show that he's doing something about Chernobyl, Gorbachev forms a working group with the express intention of appointing blame at the party's responsible for the disaster. A group of senior Soviet officials begin with a wide array of scenarios, though they quickly narrow it down to one. It's June 29, 1987. Viktor Brukanov, former director of the plant, walks towards a squat building in the middle of the town square. Gone is the welcoming culture center he helped design. Now, metal bars run the length of the windows and doors. He ascends the steps and takes his shoes off before handing them to a guard. The shoes are washed and returns to the former boss of the plant. He retires his laces and enters the building flanked by a pair of muscular armed guards. A decimator secures the wall next to the courtroom door is crackling and Brukanov notices the high reading on its digital display. His complaints about the trial take place. taking place so close to Chernobyl had fallen on death ears. Court cases must take place in the town of the alleged crime. He's led into a room he recognizes, but it's been changed from a friendly meeting space to a courtroom smelling strongly of bleach. He maneuvers himself behind a long oak table and nods a quick greeting at his fellow defendants, engineers, Nikolai Formin and Anatoly Diathlon. Brukanov is not feeling optimistic. He's spent almost a year in jail already awaiting trial. For the last three weeks, he's listened to his supposed infractions and how he is to blame. He thinks of those control rods with their graphite tips that cause the explosion. Not for the first time, he wanders why it's him sitting here and not the reactors designer. In the heat of the makeshift courtroom, the Russian prosecution lawyer makes his final plea and the judge withdraws. It takes only a moment for the judge to make his decision, except it's not really his to make. Officials in Moscow have already made it for him. When he returns, he calls for attention and delivers his damning verdict. The three scientists are each given ten years in prison for their part and the disaster. The journalists, huddled together at the back of the room, let out a collective gasp. Everyone had been expecting Brukanov, Formin and Diathlon to serve time, but ten years. Many believe that this is Gorbachev's way of showing how seriously further infractions within the Soviet Union will be punished. Brukanov is led away by prison guards and bundled into the back of a battered old van. As the engine rumbles to life and they trundle over uneven ground, he thinks of his family. His mother, who dropped out of a heart attack on hearing on Soviet state media that her son was being blamed for the disaster. His loving wife, who stood loyally by his side and his granddaughter, whom he has yet to meet. He weeps as he's driven away to his new life at a penal colony in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. In February 1989, almost three years after the accident, Gorbachev visits Chernobyl for the first time. According to the police, the police are not allowed to be in the same position as the police. The police are not allowed to be in the same position as the police. Too big for even the KGB to disperse or control. The speakers communicate with such passion and verb that those gathered believe change is inevitable. And in March 1990, something truly momentous happens. The mobilization around those issues and anti-nuclear movement that came out of Chernobyl, the major contributant factor to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, out of this anti-nuclear mobilization came the movement for independence of tiny Baltic Republic of Lithuania. Why it is important because Lithuania was the first country, the first republic to declare its independence from the Soviet Union. Though the push for independence from the USSR has been gathering momentum, it's now that it reaches critical mass. Angered by both the risks they've been exposed to at the hands of Russia and the hypocritical reality of the promised class lost, Lithuanians have had enough and it's only the start. The anti-nuclear mobilization was also responsible or was the first stage of the movement of Ukraine towards independence. Why Ukraine is important, not only because Chernobyl, of course, power plant wasn't on the territory of Ukraine and Ukraine was one of the most affected republics of the Soviet Union, but also because that was the second largest Soviet republic in the USSR. Once Ukraine declared its independence, first in August of 91, and then confirmed it through referendum in December of 1991, the Soviet Union was gone. So the impact that Lithuania and the importance of Lithuania and Ukraine toward the fall of the Soviet Union is almost impossible to overestimate. And in both cases, the first stage of this prime-dependent movement was the anti-nuclear stage which was directly related to Chernobyl. Upon gaining its independence, change is almost immediate. In one of the first ballots as a country, Ukraine votes to ban the use of nuclear energy. It's a huge decision. Though another fire at Chernobyl in October 1991 suggests that it's the correct one. A number of the nuclear power plants that were under construction was stopped of those nuclear power plants. At least two or three, one of them wasn't cremated at that time and after Chernobyl, they stopped to work there. But the rest of the reactors continued to work, but the idea was that they would be phased out within the next five years or maybe a little bit longer. The economic pressures of starting a country from scratch begin to take their toll. In 1993, the ban on nuclear power is reversed. Builders and engineers are ordered to complete partially built reactors, despite the appeals of Western countries. They believe the world would be safer without the old Soviet era reactors and without Chernobyl. Although the president of Ukraine agrees, finances dictate that the country cannot be powered in any other way. So, Chernobyl continues to generate electricity. To combat the lingering radio activity, operators work shorter stints at the plant and drive to homes beyond the exclusion zone when their shifts finish. They know that they're exposing themselves to huge amounts of radiation daily, but the pay is too good to refuse. For seven years, Western countries try to chip away at Ukrainian leaders, imploring them to turn away from nuclear energy for the sake of the planet. Finally, at the turn of the millennium, ideal is struck. The last reactor was not shut down until the year 2000. That happened under enormous pressure coming from the West and Western governments. European countries offer loans to Ukraine in order for them to shut down the nuclear program, starting with Chernobyl. So, Ukrainians were saying that, okay, we're shutting down that reactor. We are losing one of the sources of energy and we need it. We are in a difficult economic situation. But for the West and for the nuclear industry as a whole, shutting down Chernobyl was symbolically a very important development. That was symbolically turning the page on that very terrible part of world history, but also history of the nuclear industry. The nuclear industry wanted to move forward into the new century, into new millennium, without the shadow of Chernobyl over its future. Though the plans operators argue that the upgrades have made it safe, by the end of 2000, the decommissioning of Chernobyl is announced. The world's leaders celebrate an important step in preventing another disaster of the magnitude of the 1986 meltdown. The planned duly closes and aside from regular safety checks of the spent fuel and cooling radioactive matter is left unstaffed. The workers who patrolled its corridors and operated its unpredictable, poorly constructed reactors reluctantly move on to other industries and jobs. During the following decade, the concrete sarcophagus housing reactor 4 falls into further disrepair. In 2010, construction begins on a more permanent trustworthy structure. Officially dubbed the "new safe confinement", the monumental arch takes eight years to build at an estimated cost of one almost 3 billion euros. Its thick steel walls should safely house the stricken reactor for at least the next century. Officially only 31 deaths are directly attributed to Chernobyl. Many of those were technicians who were working in the plant on the night of the catastrophe, or firefighters who bravely strode into the vicinity of the burning wreckage to do their duty. A law passed by the Soviet Union in 1988 decreed that Chernobyl could not be held responsible for any deaths from that date forward, despite the unknown effects of long-term radiation poisoning. The actual number of deaths attributable to the disaster may never be agreed upon. The number of people who died and will die from Chernobyl is very difficult to estimate the numbers anywhere from 4 to 5,000 to 100,000, because we are dealing with low dosages of radiation, which affect our health in a different way. So people don't die from the acute radiation. Sickness people die from this cancer and that cancer and from other damage that radiation does to your health. The only numbers that we know for sure are the numbers of the spike in the number of the thyroid cancer among children. And there the numbers are 4,000 or more than 4,000 again. They are growing, but again that's what everyone agrees on and that's something that we can count. So the history of Chernobyl is still being written. In 2014, the Russian invasion of Ukraine brings soldiers within approximately 200 miles of the site. There is international outcry and demands are made for their withdrawal. Eight years later, in 2022, the Russian army go a step further. The legacy of Chernobyl, the contamination that was caused by the reactor and the danger associated with that. It certainly was us today. And the most recent developments, the Russian takeover of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Russians dug in trenches in the so-called Red Forest, one of the most contaminated areas, they're being contaminated themselves. Still in more than 100 sources of irradiation, elements of irradiation which are accounted for now. The war cut the supply of electricity to the Chernobyl site which endangered the cooling ponds with the spanned fuel that comes from that reactor that was shut down in the year 2000. It still needs maintenance, it still needs electricity to be cooled down. This is 22 years after that reactor was shut down and this is part of the normal procedure. So we will be living with that legacy for a long, long, long period of time for generations. Despite the safety implementations, Chernobyl is still an unstable, volatile place. It's estimated that despite the clean ups and the containment efforts, the site will remain uninhabitable for another 20,000 years. Next time on Short History of, we'll bring you a short history of the Terracotta Army. None of this appear in history books and if you would tell people that it's such a existed if some obscure literature mentioned such a thing that it would be left off as some kind of piece of fantasy and no one would take it seriously. So that's why when they stumbled upon this Terracotta Army formation, there was a total total surprise shock in fact and no one saw it coming and no one had any fantasy idea of the magnitude of the formation. That's next time on Short History of.