Ukrainians on Friday marked the 38th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster with memorials and warnings that the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine could cause similar damage to active power plants.
The nuclear disaster began in the early hours of April 26, 1986, when the Chernobyl power plant began to melt down. Rather than cool down the facility, the Soviet operators increased the power to the reactors, causing a devastating explosion that destroyed the neighboring town of Pripyat and covered large swathes of Europe with toxic plumes.
An abandoned Ferris wheel stands in the park in the ghost town of Pripyat, Ukraine, close to the Chernobyl nuclear plant, on April 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)
Visitors walk in an abandoned amusement park in the ghost town of Pripyat, not far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, on December 8, 2020. (Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)
The area surrounding Chernobyl remains an “exclusion zone,” where the government does not allow individuals to live save for a dwindling community of residents who were already mostly senior citizens when the disaster occurred and chose not to vacate the area.
At the time, Soviet communist officials claimed the disaster killed only 30 people. Tallying deaths apparently attributable to radiation-caused diseases in Ukraine and neighboring Belarus, however, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) has estimated that the true death toll is closer to 4,000. Other scientific attempts to assess the true damage caused by Chernobyl have suggested as many as 70,000 people have died as a result of radiation poison, radiation-caused cancers, and other illnesses directly related to Chernobyl.
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster remains one of the most sensational examples of communist malfeasance and incompetence in modern history.
View of the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant after the explosion on April 26, 1986, in Chernobyl, Ukraine. (Photo by SHONE/GAMMA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
On Friday, a group of the surviving first responders to the 1986 disaster, commonly known as “liquidators,” attended a ceremony in Kyiv to mark the day, laying flowers at a memorial to those who immediately lost their lives combatting the fire that erupted on April 26. Many liquidators also suffered significant health problems or were ultimately disabled as a result of their service.
Liquidators of Chernobyl nuclear power plant catastrophe lay flowers during the commemoration of the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on the 38th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident, at the Chernobyl memorial in Kyiv on April 26, 2024. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP)
Liquidators of Chernobyl nuclear power plant catastrophe, lay flowers during the commemoration of the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on the 38th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident, at the Chernobyl memorial in Kyiv on April 26, 2024. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP)
Disabled liquidators of Chernobyl nuclear power plant catastrophe talk during the commemoration of the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on the 38th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident, at the Chernobyl memorial in Kyiv on April 26, 2024. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a statement marking the anniversary by condemning Russia, recalling that Russian soldiers occupied the Chernobyl power plant site – which remains an active source of electricity for Ukrainians – in the first few weeks of the 2022 full-scale invasion.
“Radiation sees no borders or national flags. The Chornobyl [as Ukraininans write it] disaster demonstrated how rapidly deadly threats can emerge,” Zelensky said in his message. “Tens of thousands of people mitigated the Chornobyl disaster at the cost of their own health and lives, eliminating its terrible consequences in 1986 and the years after.”
Zelensky noted that Russian soldiers seized the Chernobyl plant in February 2022, accusing them of having “looted laboratories, captured guards and abused personnel, as well as used the station to launch further military operations. Russia controlled parts of the Chernobyl exclusion zone for five weeks in 2022 but have since vacated the area.
Russian “terrorists” still maintain control of a separate Ukrainian nuclear facility, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant [ZNPP], Zelensky noted, “and it is the entire world’s responsibility to put pressure on Russia to ensure that ZNPP is liberated and returned to full Ukrainian control, as well as that all Ukrainian nuclear facilities are protected from Russian strikes.”
The Ukrainian state outlet Ukrinform reported on Thursday that Russian soldiers “attacked the Zaporizhzhia region 326 times,” threatening civilians’ neighborhoods.
Prior to the 2022 Russian invasion, Zelensky had championed a program to turn Chernobyl into a tourist destination. The lack of human activity in much of the Chernobyl exclusion zone for almost 38 years has created a rich natural ecosystem that attracted visits from around the world before 2022; tours of the power plant itself, which has remained active for most of the years following the nuclear disaster, also became increasingly popular.
In 2019, announcing the debut of the “New Safe Confinement” surrounding the power plant that replaced the decaying post-1986 “sarcophagus” meant to keep radiation from spreading, Zelensky announced it was time to change Chernobyl’s status as a “negative part of Ukraine’s brand.”
“To begin with, we will create a ‘green’ corridor for tourists and remove the prerequisites for petty corruption; there will no longer be huge lines at the checkpoint and sudden denials of which people learn when they arrive at the checkpoint,” he promised. “The ban to shoot videos will be lifted, as well as other nonsensical restrictions. Let’s finally stop scaring people, visitors, and make the exclusion zone a scientific and tourist magnet in the future.”
“We will turn it into the land of freedom, which will become one of the symbols of the new Ukraine – without corruption, without stupid laws, but with investments and the future,” Zelensky declared at the time.
Chernobyl site tours have been suspended since the Russian invasion began.