by Massimo Sideri
The engineer responsible for the security of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant talks about the lack of security measures taken by the Russians: from the ditches in the Rotwald to the power failure that lasted for days
“They didn’t seem to know what this place was. That this was Chernobyl. That they commit suicide. And again: “In the Chernobyl area you can only drive on paved roads. But when one assessed the actions of the Russians, it was clear that they did not understand where they had come from and how to deal with this area. They mixed the radioactive soil with their armored vehicles with radionuclides already stabilized in the area, they contaminated the equipment and then even breathed a sigh of relief,” said Yaroslav Emelianenko, a member of the Public Council of Russian Troops immediately after the Russian troops’ withdrawal. “The State Agency of Ukraine for the management of the exclusion zone, the area with a radius of more than 30 kilometers around Lenin Reactor 4, entry into which is prohibited. It seemed farfetched, like the story of the Red Forest trenches later confirmed by drone video. Someone also spoke of “Ukrainian propaganda”. But now, in the past few hours, several western media from the BBC to CNN to the New York Times have reached the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine. And they collect evidence, leads and testimonies.
What has come out so far is a report disturbing in many ways of the absolute lack of security rules implemented by the Russian military, even in relation to itself. According to Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko, whose words were reported on Twitter by the Kiev Defense Ministry the Russian soldiers who dug these trenches “are not more than a year old”. They acted as if they had never heard of Chernobyl, the power plant of the deadliest civilian nuclear disaster in history in 1986, which was occupied by Russian troops in the first hours after the invasion of Ukraine began. In a reckless gesture, reported by the New York Times, a Russian soldier barehandedly treated a radioactive source a source of cobalt60 located in one of the nuclear waste dumps, “exposing himself to such radiation in a few seconds that the Geiger counter went crazy, “according to the engineer responsible for the safety of the plant. Now, cobalt60 is actually an artificial radioactive isotope with a fairly short halflife, as the gammaray period is called: 5.27 years.
So if it’s from 1986, even if any object in the restricted area is left untouched, especially after kicking up deadly dust, it’s likely that nuclear decay is complete. But the question that must be asked is this: can one imagine that a Russian soldier, not using elemental protection, which is also used by tourists who visited the site a few hours before the war, from the short “HalfLife” might have known of? the radioactive isotope derived from cobalt? Even if the absorbed radiation has not been able to cause a tumor over the years, which we do not necessarily hope, this remains one of the many signs of a total lack of caution.
In the past few days, a drone video reported by the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, showed how some soldiers had dug trenches in the Rotwald, one of the most contaminated areas around the plant contaminated but also to pass without protection.
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Huge yikes. What you see here are trenches being dug in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, documented by a drone flying overhead. pic.twitter.com/mTAMBPN1NC
Doge (@IntelDoge) April 6, 2022
During the Russian occupation, workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant stole fuel from the occupants to prevent the power outage: “Without electricity, the situation would have been catastrophic, explains BBC supervisor Oleksandr Lobada. Safety “because radioactive material may have been released”.
The power outage also affected one of the nuclear fuel cooling tanks, which contains more radioactive material than in the 1986 disaster. This gesture also arose in the early days of the occupation, when it was clear how Russian troops had handled the Chernobyl power plant, which apparently had no Produced more electricity, took it off the grid and entrusted all safety problems to emergency diesel engines. The sensors for detecting the radioactivity in the sealing air were also taken out of service by the Russians. And now the IAEA updates the map only thanks to the manual transmission of some data.
CNN was also allowed into the rooms where the Russians slept. The first thing you hear when you enter the room is “the beeping of the radiation detector”. The source of the radioactive material is not visible in the room, but Ukrainian officials say it came from the small particles and dust that the soldiers brought into the building. “They went to the Red Forest and brought the material to the factory through their shoes,” explains Ukrainian soldier Ihor Ugolkov. “In other areas, radiation is under control, but here it’s increasing because they’ve lived here,” he adds. Plant officials tell the US broadcaster that levels in the room used by Russian soldiers are only slightly higher than what the World Nuclear Association describes as naturally occurring radiation.
«Believe me Yaroslav Emelianenko from the Council for the Restricted Area always told the Ukrainian media the standards are quite high. Therefore, now that all these paramilitary groups will not only leave the nuclear power plant, as happened the day before, but also the Chernobyl area, where they are still located, it will be necessary to be part of the same liquidation process of 1986 until wash away special road solutions. , wash away all that filth, partially bury their fortifications they built in the Red Forest. ‘ But not all. Emelianenko has already asked that part of the trenches can remain as a kind of testimony for those who come here after the war and may be seized with doubts. The expert has already announced that he will insist that part of the “Russian trenches” be preserved for history, so that after the war visitors to the Chernobyl area can show them with a dosimeter what level of radiation they are sitting on. “They picked up this radioactive dust, it got into the body.”
On the other hand, it would be enough to spend a few minutes on Google Earth, which shows satellite imagery of the Red Forest’s surroundings from 2017, to see that there was no trace of what was found at the time.
Then there is the question of the heavy vehicles deployed in the area and then used by the Russians themselves to exit the area towards the Belarusian border, the shortest route out of Ukraine. If they have not been washed and checked, they may have become carriers of radioactivity to those who will touch them or who may already be touching them.
The 170 workers at the plant who were kidnapped by Russian forces, who have surrounded the plant since February 24, have continued to go about their work these days and they said they were also constantly being interrogated by the Russians.
Article is updated…
April 9, 2022 (Change April 9, 2022 | 13:04)
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