April 26, 1986, marked the disaster at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. By various estimates, between 600,000 and 800,000 people took part in the cleanup, but no exact count exists. On the eve of the 40th anniversary, sources interviewed by Novaya Gazeta Europe reflect on how Chornobyl affected the collapse of the USSR, Ukrainian politics, and scientific disputes over radiation.
Liquidator
Volodymyr Usatenko, a cleanup worker and former member of Ukraine’s first parliament, recalled that in 2022 Russian forces occupied the exclusion zone for a little over a month, while staff servicing the decommissioned plant remained on shift for about 600 hours instead of the standard 12. In his view, the military was looking for evidence to support claims that Ukraine had been preparing a “dirty bomb” at Chornobyl.
“I am convinced they were tasked with finding proof that Ukraine was preparing a ‘dirty bomb’ in Chornobyl,” Usatenko says.
He also argues that after the disaster, the issue of Chornobyl became a space for corruption around the Shelter structure, and that international institutions and politicians wanted to prevent panic about nuclear energy. His estimate of how much fuel was released differs from the official IAEA position.
Scientist
The author also recalls biologist Vyacheslav Konovalov, who in the 1990s assembled a “Museum of the Chornobyl Warning” from the remains of animals with abnormalities found in contaminated areas. According to the article, his interest in mutations brought pressure, and part of the collection was lost or hidden away.
Contemporary Ukrainian researchers assess those materials cautiously. Denys Vyshnevskyi of the Chornobyl Biosphere Reserve says radiation does affect living organisms, but warns against overly sweeping conclusions. Radiobiologist Yevhen Tukalenko notes that Ukrainian and international assessments of the disaster’s consequences still diverge, while the clearest accepted link remains the rise in thyroid cancer.
Politician
Vitaliy Kononov, a co-founder of the Green Party of Ukraine, describes Chornobyl as one of the factors that undermined the Soviet system. He says the first 36 hours after the explosion were lost, with neither timely public warning nor rapid evacuation. He also argues that the key materials on the causes of the disaster stayed in Moscow, while Ukraine and Belarus were left with the main consequences.
Kononov recalls that in the early 1990s environmental politics had strong public backing in Ukraine, yet the green movement failed to become the country’s main political force. In the view of the article’s protagonists, the story of Chornobyl remains not only a tragedy, but also a source of long-running social, scientific, and political disputes.