by Massimo Sideri
The Chernobyl area returned to Kyiv’s control, according to Ukraine’s Atomic Energy Agency, after some Russian soldiers were taken to specialized hospitals in Belarus after crossing and digging trenches in the Red Forest, the most contaminated area, according to Ukrainian authorities on earth
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant returned to the control of the Kiev authorities after the Russian National Guard handed it over to the Ukrainian military. This was reported by the Wall Street Journal, attaching a document signed by the stateowned company that manages the nuclear power plants, Energoatom. The news, which as always has to be accepted without absolute certainty for the time being due to the difficulties in obtaining sources, came at the end of a day full of fears and worries, which began after the Ukrainian authorities announced the part of the Russian troops that had occupied the Chernobyl nuclear power plant area withdrew, moved to Belarus, but relocated due to health problems. According to some Energoatom Ukrainian employees, the military was exposed to significant levels of radiation after traversing and digging trenches in the Red Forest, the most contaminated area on earth around the plant. Some Russian soldiers are reportedly being treated at a Belarusian hospital that specializes in treating diseases resulting from exposure to nuclear radiation.
If the news were confirmed that the Russian military was hospitalized for radiation exposure from Chernobyl (here the satellite photos of the nuclear power plant), it would ring an alarm bell for everyone.
For several reasons: it is difficult to imagine that no one could have known that the area of the site that exploded due to a defect in the RMBK reactor in 1986 became so heavily contaminated that it was closed to humans with a perimeter of the Whole century was banned. the air we breathe is radioactive, the earth is polluted, the waters are dangerous. The dust of that cursed April 26 settled everywhere. Not to mention that tons of materials used to intervene immediately after the disaster were buried within a radius of at least 30 kilometers from the exploded reactor: a waste of death. The nature of radioactivity: The same notebooks of Marie Curie, the scientist who discovered radium (hence the phenomenon’s real name), are still radioactive today. How could the Russian troops not know its effects?
It is true that a macabre Chernobyl tourism had also developed in Ukraine in recent years, with a visit to the area of alienation or exclusion, as it was called: a kind of amusement park of radioactive devastation, which from Kyiv (about 100 kilometers away) departure ). But exactly: tourism was also linked to compliance with various safety factors. First of all, after 37 years, the average radiation in the air, measured by the intensity of the ambient gamma dose, has stabilized: they are no longer deadly, but only if taken in small doses over a day, in any case with attention of the rules. In any case, precautions have also been taken in tourism, both in terms of clothing and masks and in terms of dealing with the environment. Some more exposed areas (the radiation is not evenly distributed) have been religiously avoided thanks to Geiger counters. How is it that the Russian troops would not have respected the elementary rules that everyone knows? Do they underestimate the danger of the area, as shown by the attacks of the first few days and the repeated fires in the neighboring area, which in any case throw up dangerous dust that can then be carried by the wind? this question concerns us. The days of 1986, when the USSR initially refused to provide evidence, will inevitably be remembered. The Soviet citizens themselves lied.
According to Belarusian and Ukrainian sources, the soldiers were taken to a Belarusian hospital specializing in the treatment of diseases caused by nuclear radiation, as they would show acute symptoms of nuclear contamination. The troops would also have heavily penetrated the Red Forest, the pine forest that owes its name to the fact that the treetops turned red from the radiation absorbed when the plant’s reactor exploded; According to Reuters, even the workers at the nuclear power plant could not go to this area. Nobody is there, Valery Seda, director general of Chernobyl, told Reuters. For goodness sake, no, nobody ever goes there, but a US Department of Defense official confirmed on Wednesday, March 30, that some Russian forces are withdrawing from the nuclear facility. So there certainly has been a partial shift. Maybe totally. Its nature must be understood.
The novelty of the exhibition would be direct confirmation of a lack of equipment of the Russian troops, an improvisation, an unplanned deployment and, in any case, carelessness and superficiality in dealing with the Chernobyl area: all this cannot lead to the conclusion that the situation is not so is under control.
We demand that the United Nations Security Council take immediate action to demilitarize the Chernobyl exclusion zone and set up a special UN mission to eliminate the risk of a repeat nuclear catastrophe, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshcuk had already said.
It is worth noting that when Putin occupied the Chernobyl power plant on February 24, the sensors had registered an increase in the intensity of the ambient gamma dose: from about 3,000 nanosieverts per hour (nSv / h) to over 65,000 nSv / h ( 1 sievert corresponds to the energy absorption of the entire human body of 1 joule per kg body weight from exposure to gamma radiation of cosmic or terrestrial origin in the open air). The spike would only have been caused by the movement of heavy military vehicles on the radiationcontaminated ground around the site, according to experts.
But even with the occupation of other nuclear sites, such as that of Zaporizhzhia (where there are six active reactors, now partially shut down by the Russians, which alone provided about a quarter of all Ukraine’s energy), the nuclear experts at ‘Aiea, the International Atomic Energy Agency, have sent signals of moderate calm: Europe is indeed full of centers for detecting the intensity of environmental gamma dose, so much so that the European Commission’s Joint Research Center is making the data public.
Chernobyl is of course a special case. We know, as mentioned, that even in prewar conditions, levels exceeded 3,000 nSv/h, a percentage that pushed hapless hitandrun tourism to its limits. But little else: Even the Ukrainian technical staff who oversee and monitor the onsite power plant and the concrete and steel shell protecting the old Soviet reactor had to follow strict protocols on the shifts first brought into the crisis by Russian troops. Paradoxically, from the Joint Research Center’s Ukraine overview map today, maximum radiation levels are also falling below 500 nSv/h, a limit that until recently was exceeded in some areas such as the UkraineBelarus border (so very close to that Chernobyl area). The intensity can depend on many factors, including environmental factors such as the wind, which lifts radioactive dust from Earth. However, as confirmed by the IAEA, the control units of the occupied territories are in fact no longer transmitting any data. This does not mean, however, that if the gamma doses increased significantly, the other European plants would not be able to detect the variation: the radiation would shift and alarm the control units in neighboring countries. But we certainly do not know the real environmental situation of the restricted area. Some map data is now out of date. As the IAEA also had to acknowledge, the information is now coming to us from the Russian military. If the unconsciousness shown to his own troops was confirmed, how could we trust the information that was supplied from outside?
That is why the use of neutral observers in the area of death is becoming increasingly important.
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As Kim Willsher notes in the Guardian, corroboration of the story would show a staggering level of ignorance of the dangers of the exclusion zone, or a criminal will on the part of Russian commandos to disorder their troops in an area that is still very dangerous.
Ukrainians working at Chernobyl quoted by the Guardian itself described the arrival of soldiers without protective gear around the plant as a suicide squad.
Ukraine hosts 15 nuclear reactors (of which 8 are currently operational) in 4 power plants: one of them, that of Zaporizhzia, which is currently under Russian control.
[3] Yemelyanenko quotes Belarusian TV on his Facebook page: Seven medical buses with people inside arrived at 12:20 p.m. in Homel, Belarus, at the Center for Radiological Medicine. They regularly bring Russian soldiers there. pic.twitter.com/ojMdRAsJ93
Victor Kovalenko (@MrKovalenko) March 30, 2022
March 31, 2022 (Change March 31, 2022 | 8:40 p.m.)
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