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Adi Roche: My nightmare is that the next Chernobyl event occurs at Chernobyl itself

There may be an impression 40 years on that Chernobyl is something which happened a very long time ago and no longer poses a threat to the world, but the reality is very different. Chernobyl is not something from the past – Chernobyl is forever. The impact of that single nuclear incident can never be undone; its radioactive footprint is still affecting countless millions of people.

For the first time in history, nuclear facilities have been weaponised in active warfare. This is not Cold War rhetoric – it is a new and terrifying reality. If we remain silent, we are playing with a loaded gun.

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There may be a view that the nuclear disaster is an event from long ago and no longer poses a threat, but the reality is very different

Adi Roche, Sat Apr 25 2026 – https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/04/25/adi-roche-my-worst-nightmare-is-that-the-next-chornobyl-could-be-chornobyl-itself/

At exactly 01:23 on the morning of April 26th, 1986, a chain of events in Reactor No 4 at Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine triggered the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

The first of the explosions blew a 1,000-ton roof off reactor No 4 as though it was the lid of a saucepan, and a second, bigger explosion disintegrated the reactor core, rocketing tons of deadly radioactive material high into the night sky like a blazing meteor.Only 3 per cent of the reactor’s nuclear fuel escaped in the first catastrophic moments. Up to 200 tons of uranium dioxide fuel remains buried in the broken heart of reactor 4.

In that instant, the world changed forever.

A new word, Chernobyl, entered into the history of world disasters and the history of the world with deadly and frightful force. The sun shone, the wind blew, rain fell – and so did the deadly radioactive poison with it.

A nuclear catastrophe does not conclude when the cameras leave. It seeps into the soil, the water, the food chain, and embeds itself in the DNA of all living things. It passes silently from one generation to the next, creating what has become commonly known as “Chernobyl lineage”, as the damage and devastation leans into the next generation.

For four decades, I have walked beside the victims of this tragedy. I have held children whose tiny thyroid glands were attacked by poisonous radioactive iodine 131, as their small bodies mistook it for naturally occurring safe iodine. I have listened to some of “liquidators” – the 800,000 young men, including many conscripted, who were sent into the convulsing fires of hell with shovels and bare hands to contain the inferno – describe running across radioactive rooftops for 60 seconds at a time, knowing that every second shortened their lives. We missed a far greater nuclear explosion at Chernobyl by a hair’s breadth because of these brave men. Without the intervention by the liquidators, there would have been even further widespread contamination and radioactivity on a global level.

“To those who saved the world” are the words on the monument to the liquidators at the site in Chernobyl. Hailed as heroes in 1986, they are now discarded and forgotten, their ill-health dismissed by the authorities as being unrelated to their exposure to extraordinary levels of radiation and the lack of adequate safety precautions. Many of them paid with their health and their lives. Today, too many of them battle for pensions and medical care while their suffering is dismissed or minimised. Their self-sacrifice cannot be overstated.

There may be an impression 40 years on that Chernobyl is something which happened a very long time ago and no longer poses a threat to the world, but the reality is very different. Chernobyl is not something from the past – Chernobyl is forever. The impact of that single nuclear incident can never be undone; its radioactive footprint is still affecting countless millions of people.

It is impossible to say whether we are over the peak of the consequences of radioactive contamination, or whether we are just on the threshold. The consequences will last for up to 20,000 years. Other disasters are vying for the world’s attention while Chernobyl has been relegated to history, even though the latency period for some cancers is estimated to be up to 60 years – so the worst could yet be to come.

[ ‘Sometimes I can’t sleep at night’: Adi Roche warns of nuclear risks of Ukraine conflict as she picks up peace awardOpens in new window ]

The ghost of Chernobyl was dragged back into headlines on February 24th, 2022, as Russian troops drove tanks through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone on their way to Kyiv. Places such as Chernobyl’s Red Forest, regarded as among the most radioactive landscapes on Earth, became a military corridor, and deeply radioactive soil that had lain undisturbed for decades was churned up again. Radiation does not need a passport. It does not respect boundaries or borders, travelling wherever the wind takes it. Soon after, Russian forces occupied Europe’s largest nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia. For the first time in history, nuclear facilities have been weaponised in active warfare. This is not Cold War rhetoric – it is a new and terrifying reality. If we remain silent, we are playing with a loaded gun.

‘We must call for nuclear facilities to be declared permanent “no war zones” under international law. Attacks on nuclear sites must be treated unequivocally as war crimes’

Nuclear power plants were always considered globally “off-limits” because of their deadly catastrophic potential. The collision between warfare and nuclear energy has created a threat with consequences not just for Ukraine, but for Europe and the world and all the generations yet unborn. This weaponising of nuclear facilities has resulted in a collision between warfare and nuclear power, which is a whole new threat with potentially devastating, unimaginable consequences for humankind for centuries to come. This is nuclear terrorism.

The issues associated with Chernobyl have become even more urgent, particularly following the Valentine’s Day 2025 drone strikes on the nuclear power plant, further escalating the war. The impregnable sarcophagus that is meant to protect humanity from radiation is scarred and breached, heightening the risk of another nuclear catastrophe and bringing with it a sense of foreboding for wars of the future.My worst nightmare in this conflict is that the tragedy of a second Chernobyl would be unleashed on the world. The next Chernobyl-type event could happen at Chernobyl itself.

Ireland knows something about solidarity. Compassion became our calling card and is the heartbeat of our society.

That is needed now more than ever. The Irish proverb “Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine” hasnever been more apt.

We must call for nuclear facilities to be declared permanent “no war zones” under international law. Attacks on nuclear sites must be treated unequivocally as war crimes.

The “war” that has been waged by what happened at Chernobyl is a silent, invisible but deadly one. No associated smells, no visible signs – nothing to forewarn you of danger.

Deadly radiation flows in rivers, towns, streams and forests. It clicks endlessly, ferociously, in Geiger counters, into the silent numbness that is, and sadly always will be, Chernobyl

If we fail to learn from Chernobyl, we betray those who died and those who still suffer. If we fail to act, we risk repeating the unthinkable. Chernobyl is not history, it is a warning. We cannot, will not, turn away.

Adi Roche is the founder and voluntary chief executive of Chernobyl Children International

April 30, 2026 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

LEST WE FORGET – REMEMBERING THE HUMAN IMPACT OF THECHORNOBYL DISASTER

Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM), 24th April 2026, https://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/SCRAM-Chornobyl-press-release-.pdf

The Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace has issued a reminder of the huge
human cost of the Chornobyl disaster in Ukraine to mark its 40th anniversary this Sunday,
26th April. Studies indicate a result of the disaster of between 16000 and 40000 fatal cancers.
Others claim these estimates are very conservative.(1,2)


Pete Roche of SCRAM said: “The contrast between what happened 40 years ago in Ukraine
at the Chornobyl nuclear plant – and the proclamations of today’s nuclear industry that it is
not dangerous or dirty – could not be greater. Chornobyl contamination was widespread
across Europe and is estimated to result in anything between 16,000 and 40,000 fatal cancers,
possibly many more.


“Whilst we haven’t experienced a full meltdown at a UK nuclear plant to date, the industry’s
record in the UK is not a clean one. These include the serious 3-day reactor core fire at
Windscale in Cumbria in 1957 and other accidental releases of highly radioactive material
into the sea and the local environment, and in Scotland the waste shaft explosion at Dounreay
in 1977.


“Both Torness and Hunterston power stations in Scotland suffered significant cracking in
their graphite reactor cores over time, and there have been numerous shut downs over their
years of operation but thankfully did not result in the type of full scale regional emergency at
Chornobyl or in Japan at the Fukushima plant in 2011. The inherent danger is there despite
nuclear public relations efforts, and the legacy of toxic waste will be with future generations
for hundreds of years. 40 years after the disaster, it is still highly vulnerable from the conflict
in the region. Wind turbines, hydro plants and solar panels don’t carry these risks.

“After the reprocessing at Sellafield was abandoned, highly radioactive reactor fuel elements
will now be stored on UK nuclear sites well into the 2100s. No safe solution has been found
other than looking for eventual deep burial at a location yet to be determined, that will need
guarded for hundreds if not thousands of years.


“On the positive side of the debate over energy, with Scotland’s huge renewable resources,
nuclear is not needed. Scotland can power itself, and export clean, green power to other
countries – and combine that with energy storage, flexible green power and an upgraded grid
system. The revolution in renewable energy is already well underway and is globally
unstoppable. New nuclear power has no place in a clean, green energy system, and certainly
not in Scotland.”


A recent Survation poll of 2000 people, indicated that a majority of Scots preferred renewable
energy over nuclear to tackle the climate crisis and be most effective at reducing energy bills.
It also found that the nuclear industry was the least trusted to ‘tell the truth aboutits products, costs, pollutants and safety record.’ (3)

The campaign group says nuclear is not needed and is an expensive distraction that will do
nothing to tackle the climate crisis, calling instead for a 100% renewable energy system to be
committed to by the next Scottish Government after the May election.

April 29, 2026 Posted by | health, Ukraine | Leave a comment

The untold race to escape Chernobyl: A nuclear disaster. Families surrounded by deadly radiation. Then one woman risked her life to save 45,000 people.

By IMOGEN GARFINKEL – SENIOR FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER and PERKIN AMALARAJ, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER, 22 April 2026 , https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15748163/The-untold-race-escape-Chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-Families-surrounded-deadly-radiation-one-woman-risked-life-save-45-000-people.html

Radiation is an odourless, invisible killer, with the potential to surge through the body and tear it apart on a cellular level, irreversibly damaging DNA.

When reactor number four at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in April 1986, debris emanated radiation at a level of 10,000 roentgens per hour – enough to cause a fatal dose to anyone who stood nearby for a matter of minutes.

Firefighters made the ultimate sacrifice on April 26, absorbing unprecedented amounts of the poison as they battled to put out the enormous flames of history’s most devastating nuclear accident.

As a gigantic radioactive cloud began spreading over the world – infecting 40 per cent of Europe and even stretching into northern Africa and north America – one woman found herself in the eye of the storm.

Maria Protsenko, garbed in just a blouse, skirt and sandals, was personally responsible for orchestrating the mass evacuation of Pripyat’s 45,000 civilians, emptying the devastated Soviet city of any sign of life.

She was previously the chief architect of the city, having lovingly designed neighbourhoods for young families, but in a split second she became a kind of grim reaper, sweeping away all the civilisation she had helped to create.

Recounting the fateful day to the makers of the TV series ‘Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown’ on National Geographic, Protsenko transports herself back 40 years ago and tells of the wounds that haven’t left her.

‘For the first time in my life, I was not building a city, I was burying it forever,’ she said, reflecting on the scale of destruction. ‘This is not only a man-made disaster, it is a catastrophe that broke the lives of thousands of people.’

By 11am the day after the explosion, a mass evacuation was announced and scheduled for 2pm, but by that point it was too late.

Some of those living closest to the power plant had already received internal radiation doses in their thyroid glands of up to 3.9Gy – roughly 37,000 times the dose of a chest x-ray – after breathing radioactive material and eating contaminated food 

Immediately after the accident, thyroid cancer was particularly rampant in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, with 5,000 cases diagnosed among those who were children and adolescents at the time of exposure.

Today, Pripyat is an eerie ghost town of cavernous kindergartens, abandoned houses and sports halls left to decay, having been declared too radioactively dangerous for human habitation for at least 24,000 years. 

Protsenko wore no protective clothing as she led the vast evacuation operation, standing on a bridge overlooking the city while 1,500 buses picked up families district by district.

She stayed up all night designing intricate maps, allowing her to execute the mammoth task with tactical precision, not leaving anyone behind in the industrial wasteland.

‘At 2pm the first bus arrived… I was standing there in my blouse and my skirt, and I had sandals on my bare feet. I had no protective gear,’ she told the documentary.

Only thick sheets of lead or massive concrete blocks would have prevented her from being contaminated. 

‘All that radioactive dust was rising and got on my bare feet and my legs. That’s why they were so itchy. Can you imagine how much radioactive dust was flying from that place, at that time?’

But at that point, no one could understood the scale of the tragedy – not yet. 

Girls and boys played together in the street as they waited for their livesaving convoys, not yet grasping the fact that the evacuation wasn’t temporary and they may never see each other again.

Many didn’t have a chance to say goodbye before they vanished from each other’s lives forever, turning from neighbours to refugees in one simple journey.

‘We evacuated nearly 45,000 people. Without panicking and noise, we evacuated the entire city,’ Protsenko said. 

She is still haunted by the memory of one woman, who watched her intensely from the bus window as she was torn away from her community.

‘She didn’t just look at me, she turned her head, following me with her stare.

‘There was something in her face, like she was screaming inside: “What is this?! Where am I going?!”‘

While she was helping the city’s inhabitants escape, Protsenko had no idea she was exposing herself to so much lethal radiation.

‘At that moment, I was not only not afraid, I did not even think about it,’ she said.

It was only after the disaster that the architect remembered how she had spent hours absorbing the toxic fallout near the Red Forest, breathing in countless particles of contaminated dust as convoys rolled past. 

‘The thing is, radiation does not make noise like exploding bombs. It does not burn like a fire. It has no smell. You do not feel it immediately, it kills quietly, slowly. And there is no awareness at all that you are in danger,’ she said.

Following the evacuation, she developed a persistent cough, headaches, dryness in her mouth and intense itching in her legs – but still did not grasp that she had likely absorbed a significant dose of radiation.

Now aged 80, she’s still living with the long-term impact of the disaster.

‘I am no longer 40… my health is no longer what it used to be… all as a result of the radiation exposure I received long ago.’

She added: ‘No one would envy it.’

While some degree of exposure was inevitable to everybody in the vicinity of the accident, the Soviet authorities didn’t help matters by underplaying the tragedy in its immediate aftermath – ultimately slowing down the evacuation.

Despite the explosion in the early hours of April 26, life in the city initially continued as normal, with children outside playing and parents going about their errands, unaware that they were at the centre of a nuclear catastrophe.

‘The night was clear, warm, and quiet. The residents of the city were peacefully asleep and knew nothing yet about the disaster that had occurred,’ Protsenko said.

‘Information about the radiation situation was kept in strict secrecy.’

When she was tasked with leading the evacuation, even she hadn’t grasped the scale of the calamity, but she knew she had a job to do.

‘By 6pm… we had practically evacuated the entire population of the city,’ she said.

Within a few hours, it was done, and Pripyat would never be the same again.

By that time, she was one of the last people left in the uninhabitable wreckage of a town. ‘The city became empty… no lights were on… it felt a little eerie.’

The Chernobyl disaster isn’t contained to a single day, but went on to redefine the lives of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world.

Investigations ultimately concluded that faulty protocols in the plant’s design and poorly trained personnel were responsible for the explosion, which blew the 1,000-ton steel lid off the reactor – the same weight as three 747 passenger planes. 

In the weeks and months that followed the accident, scores of firefighters, engineers, military troops, police, miners, cleaners and medical personnel – collectively known as ‘liquidators’ – were sent to the destroyed power plant in an effort to control the blaze and core meltdown.

In Belarus, 40,049 liquidators were registered to have cancers by 2008 along with a further 2,833 from Russia. In Ukraine, disability among the workers soared, with 68 per cent regarded healthy in 1988, compared to 26 years when only 5.5 per cent were still in good physical condition.

As well as coping with physical sickness, Protsenko is still grappling with the day to day consequences of Russian authoritarianism.

n 2022, she was forced to flee Ukraine in a wheelchair with her daughter and their kitten, following Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion. 

And with Putin’s callous disregard for safety, having launched a major offensive to capture the area around Chernobyl just days into his invasion – only to abandon it weeks later – only time will tell how far the long shadow the nuclear plant casts will stretch.

Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm 

April 28, 2026 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, Ukraine | 1 Comment

Nuclear War at Ukraine-Russia border could trigger years of global climate disruption and radioactive fallout, research suggests.

 Duncan Sandes, 23 April 26, https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-environment-science-and-economy/nuclear-war-at-ukraine-russia-border-could-trigger-years-of-global-climate-disruption-and-radioactive-fallout-research-suggests/

Geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe underscore the urgency of addressing the climate and radiological consequences of a regional nuclear conflict.

Even a small-scale nuclear conflict at the Ukraine–Russia border could cause years of severe global climate disruption and radioactive fallout across much of the world, new research suggests.

In the study, published in npj Clean Air, researchers at the University of Exeter used the UK Earth System Model to simulate a hypothetical regional nuclear conflict at the Ukraine-Russia border. The results shows that the soot emitted after nuclear detonation would rapidly spread through the atmosphere, block sunlight and disrupt climate across the Northern Hemisphere.

In the first year after the conflict, the Northern Hemisphere cools by about 1°C on average, with much larger regional drops of around 5°C in Russia and 4°C in the United States. Surface sunlight declines sharply, and precipitation falls substantially across key mid-latitude agricultural regions.

The researchers also found that the climate effects would not be short-lived, lasting for approximately 6 years. Stratospheric warming caused by the soot alters major atmospheric circulation patterns, including the jet streams and the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

Alongside the climate impacts, the study examined the long-term dispersion of radioactive material attached to the black carbon particles. The results suggest that long-lived radionuclides could be transported globally, with around 40% eventually depositing in the Southern Hemisphere. This means the consequences of a regional nuclear conflict would not remain confined to the war zone but would instead become a global humanitarian and environmental issue.

Lead author Dr Ananth Ranjithkumar, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, said: “Even a small-scale regional nuclear conflict would not remain a regional catastrophe for long. Our simulations show that its effects could reverberate across the planet for years, disrupting climate systems and spreading radioactive fallout far beyond the detonation zone, turning a regional war into a global crisis.”

Co-Author Professor Jim Haywood, also of the University of Exeter added: “This study confirms the global impact of regional nuclear conflicts upon climate, and emphasises that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that ended February 5, 2026 urgently needs to be extended.”

Co-Author Professor Nathan Mayne, also from the University of Exeter said “This is an excellent example of how our studies of other planets can contribute to understanding Earth’s climate.

“From planet wide dust storms on Mars, to kilometre per second winds in the atmospheres of extremely hot gas giant planets, our adaptations lead to improvements in how we capture climate and weather phenomena for Earth itself both in `normal’ and, in this case, extreme situations.”

The study, Nuclear Conflict in Eastern Europe: Climate disruption and Radiological fallout, is available to read here .

April 27, 2026 Posted by | climate change, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chernobyl, 40 Years Since Disaster: Five Things to Know

 Ukraine on Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the explosion at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant – the worst civilian nuclear disaster in
history. It comes four years into the Russian invasion that has put the
plant once again under threat and raised risks of another radioactive
catastrophe.

Here are five things to know about the disaster and the plant
today: Thousands are estimated to have died as a result of exposure to the
radiation, though assessments of the precise human toll vary. A 2005 UN
report put the number of confirmed and projected deaths at 4,000 in the
three worst-affected countries. Greenpeace in 2006 estimated that the
disaster had caused close to 100,000 deaths. According to the United
Nations, some 600,000 people involved in the clean-up operation — known as
“liquidators” — were exposed to high levels of radiation. The disaster
raised public fears of nuclear energy, fuelling a surge in anti-nuclear
movements across Europe.

 Kyiv Post 24th April 2026, https://www.kyivpost.com/post/74633

April 27, 2026 Posted by | incidents, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Kiev’s 2014 anti-terror operation was a bankers’ war

The war, which left 14,000 casualties, was instigated by IMF’s “key shareholders,” and discussed by Arianne de Rothschild and Jeffrey Epstein

Alex Krainer, Apr 23, 2026, https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/kievs-2014-anti-terror-operation?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1063805&post_id=194384784&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

On 15 April 2026, we passed the 12-year anniversary from the start of Ukraine’s anti-terrorism operation (ATO), which set off a cascade of events leading to a civil war in Ukraine and which made the ultimate clash between Russia and the U.S./NATO all but inevitable. The ATO was a critical part of Western powers’ attempt to take full control of Ukraine, but at the same time, but its nature and intensity was deliberately obscured in the Western media.

The Maidan coup and the breakup of Ukraine

Violent overthrow of the democratically elected President Alexander Yanukovich took place in February 2014 and it provoked strong resistance in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine where the majority of people understood what took place in Kiev.

These were the most populous regions of Ukraine which overwhelmingly supported President Yanukovych. In the 2010 elections in the Donbass he received over 90% of the vote and the people there did not accept his violent overthrow.


Russia seizes Crimea

In the immediate aftermath of the coup, Moscow moved to secure the Crimean peninsula. On 27 February 2014, Russian troops that were stationed in Crimea secured all of the peninsula’s strategic points to prevent a forcible takeover by Kiev junta’s forces. On 16 March, Crimea held a referendum to a very large turnout (83.1%) and 96.77% of the votes (1.23 million) were in favor of the peninsula re-joining Russia. Two days later, on 18 March, the Kremlin officially recognized Crimea as a constituent part of the Russian Federation.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the east and the south of Ukraine demonstrations against the new regime multiplied, disabling Kiev’s attempts to take full control the country. Kiev’s Western sponsors exerted pressure on the new government to crack down on these protests and consolidate control of the whole country. As a result, in early March 2014 Kiev began sending convoys of troops armed with helicopters, artillery and tanks toward the mutinous regions.

However, the people of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk organized to block their advance. Because the ordinary Ukrainian soldiers were reluctant to unleash violence on their fellow citizens, these acts of civilian resistance proved effective and the regime was in danger of losing control of the country’s south and east regions.

The Nazification

On 13 March, the Junta moved quickly to form a more aggressive force, a 60,000-strong National Guard. Led by the new security chief Andriy Paruby, the National Guard would play a similar role in Ukraine as Ernst Roehm’s Storm Troopers played in Germany during the 1930s: it would be to carry through an onslaught against any elements disloyal to the regime.

At the same time, the Interior Minister Arsen Avakov took up the task of spiking up the rest of Ukraine’s armed forces by seeding almost all of their regular units with at least two or three far right radicals to overcome the troops’ scruples about violence. These men were assigned to accompany the regular army units, confront the protesters and enforce the Junta’s commands.

As John Pilger reported in The Guardian at the time, Ukraine was turned into a CIA theme park, run personally by the CIA director John Brennan in Kiev, with dozens of “special units” from the CIA and FBI setting up a “security structure” overseeing savage attacks on those who opposed the February Coup.


Kiev’s ATO triggers a civil war in Ukraine

In this way, the stage was set for a civil war in Ukraine. What’s important to recognize, however, is that the pressure to consolidate Junta’s control over the Donbass originated with the international banking cartel, the IMF acting as their conduit.

Immediately after the coup, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew indicated that Ukraine’s discussions with the IMF were crucial. Lew held discussions with the junta’s leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk and assured him that his government could count on a broad international assistance coordinated by the IMF.

Lew then instructed the IMF chief Christine Lagarde that Ukraine needed to quickly begin implementing the requisite “structural reforms.” Two weeks into Kiev’s ATO, on Wednesday, 30 April 2014, the IMF signed off on a $17 billion aid package for Ukraine.

IMF money, with strings attached

This was the very same IMF that only six months prior could come up with only $4 billion in aid, subject to extremely harsh conditions. But for the new regime, $17 billion was doable, only with different strings attached this time. One day after approving the new aid package, the Fund’s staff report pointed to the obvious problem:

“… unfolding developments in the east and tense relations with Russia could severely disrupt bilateral trade and depress investment confidence for a considerable period of time, thus worsening the economic outlook. … Should the central government lose effective control over the east, the program will have to be re-designed. ”

A CNBC article titled, “IMF warns Ukraine on bailout if it loses East” noted that Kiev’s actions were “politically driven by key IMF shareholders to support the Yatsenyuk ‘kamikaze’ administration in its reform efforts.” How important was IMF’s role? On 26 November 2014, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk said as follows:

“Our cabinet has resumed the program of activity and cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and other banks. Today international investors are not ready to go to the country but international banks are ready to help us. … We would not have survived without the international assistance.”

However, to earn that vital assistance from western banking cartel, Kiev would have to take full control of the defiant eastern regions which accounted for nearly 80% of the nation’s GDP.

It’s (as always) the collateral, stupid!

Why, we might ask, were the banking interests so keen that their Kiev junta retain control of the Donbas? It all had much less to do with its freedom and democracy and more with its large coal industry, ferrous-metallurgy industry, machine building, chemical industry, construction sector, enormous energy resources, diversified agriculture, and a dense transportation network – all coveted prizes for the western financial interests.

Furthermore, the Donbass accounted for almost 95% of Ukraine’s domestic energy resources and about 30% of her energy use. Some 90% of Ukraine’s coal reserves, which are the 6th largest in the world, are located in the Donetsk basin. This was crucial for Ukraine’s energy diversification plans, as formulated by the OECD in 2011. The plan entailed doubling Ukraine’s electricity generation through 2030 and shifting thermal power plants from gas, which was supplied from Russia, to domestic coal.

Taking control of the Donbas and Crimea was essential for the realization of that plan. Ukraine was also found to have the third largest shale gas reserves, estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters. One of the two large fields, the Yuzivska, falls almost entirely within the Donetsk and Kharkov oblasts. Western energy giants like Chevron, Exxon, Halliburton and Shell had already set their crosshairs on projects in eastern Ukraine oblasts.

The rebellion in Donetsk and Lugansk deprived them of the opportunity to develop those assets, and their bankers of the opportunity to turn those natural resources into their own collateral. Already in June 2014, Royal Dutch Shell had to suspend operations on shale gas exploration projects on Yuzivska due to the fact that Kiev government was unable to secure their control over the field. Six months later, the company had to abandon the project altogether.

Likewise, Chevron had to abandon its own plans to develop Ukraine’s energy resources, estimated to be worth about $10 billion. After Russia annexed Crimea, Exxon Mobil had to shelve its own ambitious plans to develop Black Sea offshore gas fields. Its $12 billion Skifska project with 3 trillion cubic feet of estimated gas reserves was expected to begin producing gas in 2017, only now it was on Russia’s sovereign territory.

The price of democracy and freedom

All these resources could not just be abandoned to the uppity east Ukrainians. There was work to be done and Western diplomats and ‘advisors’ made sure to prod their Kiev agents accordingly. As soon as the Junta was in power a slew of top western officials descended on Ukraine’s capital, including John Kerry, two visits by Vice President Joe Biden, a number of “senior US defense officials,” and no less than seven visits by Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, advising the new government on how to secure the nation.

On 12 April 2014 CIA Director John Brennan made a secret visit to Kiev for a meeting with the Junta’s key officials. Ukraine’s top level intelligence officer Andrii Telizhenko testified that, at the time, he received a call from the U.S. Embassy asking him to help organize the meeting that would include his boss, the First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarma, U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Pyatt, Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, foreign intelligence chief Victor Gvozd, and a few other senior Ukrainian security officials.

Telizhenko said that, “Brennan gave [the] green light to use force against Donbass,” and discussed “how the U.S. could support it… Brennan was talking about how Ukraine should act… A plan to keep Donbass in Ukraine’s hands… Ukraine has to take firm, aggressive action to not let this spread all over.” The very next day, the Junta announced its brutal “anti-terrorist operation” (ATO) against the rebel regions, which then kicked off on 15 April, 12 years ago.

So, who were the IMF’s “key shareholders”?

As CNBC reported, today we know that Kiev’s actions were “politically driven by key IMF shareholders to support the Yatsenyuk ‘kamikaze’ administration in its reform efforts.” Given that Kiev’s ATO triggered a civil war in Ukraine, caused over 14,000 casualties it would be interesting to know who these “key IMF shareholders” were.

Keep in mind, the 2014 coup and Kiev’s ATO created the conflict that ultimately cascaded into a full-scale war between Ukraine in Russia, resulting in well over a million casualties and a near total devastation of Ukraine’s economy and society. Without a doubt, this conflict will continue to metastasize and might, ultimately, lead to another devastating World War on the European continent.

Finding out the “key shareholders” should not be too difficult if we wanted to prevent the war from escalating further. Today we even know one suspect by name, thanks to her correspondence with her pet employee, Jeffrey Epstein: Arianne de Rothschild, CEO of the Edmond de Rothschild Group. Here’s [on orignal] an email exchanged between them only three days after Kiev launched their ATO:

With Ukraine’s estimated $10-12 trillion in money-good collateral, there would indeed be “many opportunities , many”

April 26, 2026 Posted by | politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Remembering Chornobyl

  by beyondnuclearinternational, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/04/19/remembering-chornobyl/

40 years on we are still asking the wrong questions and getting a lot of wrong answers, writes Linda Pentz Gunter

Probably the most heinous crime, other than the avoidable accident itself and its immediate coverup, is the way that the Chornobyl (Ukrainian equivalent spelling) nuclear power disaster in Ukraine, 40 years old this week, has been used to downplay and normalize the long-lasting health impacts caused by that April 26, 1986 explosion.

Still today, the myth is repeated that “no one died” — meaning no one in the public. Instead, we are told over and over that it was only a handful of liquidators, sent in to deal with the immediate crisis, who were killed by the massive release of radiation resulting from the reactor explosion.

And still today, in part because of that myth, now so firmly cemented in the public and media narratives around the Chornobyl disaster, the true health effects of even just routine reactor operation, or the exposures suffered by communities living around active or abandoned uranium mines, or by those working in uranium enrichment or fuel fabrication facilities, are discounted and dismissed.

Worse still, we are now facing a concerted effort by the Trump administration to emasculate already weak radiation protection standards, once again ignoring females who are most vulnerable to harm, and especially pregnant women, babies and children. 

Through yet another executive order accelerating nuclear power expansion while sparing the industry the costs it should incur to guarantee safety (an impossibility anyway), the White House wants to abandon the long-held Linear No Threshold (LNT) model.

LNT holds that radiation damage increases with higher exposures, and that harm is posed by all radiation exposure no matter how small. But LNT itself is already unsatisfactory, since health studies continue to indicate that more — not less — protection is needed for non-cancer impacts, and for radionuclides taken internally, than is already provided by applying LNT.

This is what makes the perpetual focus on “who died” when it comes to major nuclear accidents, fundamentally the wrong question. We will likely never know who or how many died as a result of the Chornobyl disaster. Registries and statistics weren’t kept, people moved around, and, as is so often the case, illnesses were ascribed to other causes. Certainty is hard to achieve.

Nevertheless, perhaps one of the most important pieces of research on the health realities of the Chornobyl aftermath was done by historian Kate Brown in her book Manual For Survival. A Chernobyl Guide to the Future. It looks like a “hefty tome”, but it is anything but. Despite being nonfiction, it reads like a page-turning thriller and some of what she uncovers is eye-stretching. And, of course, by saying “uncovers,” we immediately understand that this was indeed a cover-up, first by the then Soviet Union, and then compliantly perpetuated by the United States and other western allies eager to avoid any shocking realization by the general public that nuclear power technology is phenomenally dangerous and human beings are liable to lose control of it, with disastrous results.

This returns us to the question about the protracted harm that can be caused if something goes very badly wrong at a nuclear power plant. And it returns us to dispensing with the wrong question, which is “how many people died?”

That wrong question, a favorite of headline writers and spin doctors, sets us on a perpetual path to dispute. The health figures, especially fatalities, have become the most misrepresented statistic related to the Chornobyl disaster. But focusing only on fatalities also serves to diminish the disaster’s impact. Nuclear power plant accidents often do not kill people instantly and sometimes not at all. It can take years before fatal illnesses triggered by a nuclear accident take hold. This creates a challenge in calculating just who eventually died due to the accident and who suffered non-fatal consequences.

Exposure to ionizing radiation released by a nuclear power plant (and not just from accidents but every day) can cause serious non-fatal illnesses as well. These should not be discounted. Arguably, neither should post-accident psychological trauma. Nuclear power plant accidents can and should be prevented. The only sure way to do so is to close them all down. Otherwise we risk another Chornobyl, or Three Mile Island, or Fukushima.

In our Thunderbird newsletter of 2018, we examined some of the key myths around the impacts of the Chornobyl disaster now 40 years ago. Below, is a synopsis of some of the key points, as they bear repeating and remain perpetually true. The full document can be read here.

What happened?

On April 26, 1986, Unit 4 at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant exploded. That explosion and the resulting fire, lofted huge amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Unit 4 was relatively new, having only been in service for just over two years. The accident occurred during what should have been a routine test to see how the plant would operate if it lost power. The test involved shutting down safety systems but a series of human errors, compounded by design flaws, instead set in motion a catastrophic chain of events.

After shutting down the turbine system that provided the cooling water to the reactor, the water began boiling and workers desperately tried to re-insert control rods to slow down the nuclear reaction. But the rods jammed and control of Unit 4 was irrevocably lost. The explosion and fire — which took five months to put out — dispersed at least 200 times more radioactivity than that produced by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. The fallout contaminated several million square kilometers of land in the former Soviet Union and in Europe and was also detected in the US

Soviet authorities were slow to react. The accident was first detected by monitors in Sweden. The nearby city of Pripyat was not evacuated immediately. By the time they did so, radioactivity levels were 60,000 times higher than “normal”. 

The financial cost of the accident, while difficult to calculate given the many unknowns, is estimated to be in the region of $700 billion and is expected to keep rising.

The Liquidators 

The Chornobyl liquidators were dispatched to the stricken nuclear plant in the immediate aftermath, as well as for at least the subsequent two years, to manage and endeavor to “clean up” the disaster. They included military as well as civilian personnel such as firefighters, nuclear plant workers and other skilled professionals.

While estimates of the number of liquidators varies, the generally accepted figure is around 800,000. However, evaluating their fate has been difficult. Only a small portion of them were subject to medical examinations. 

Yet, by 1992 it was estimated that 70,000 liquidators were invalids and 13,000 had died. These estimates rose to 50,000 then to 100,000 deaths among liquidators in 2006. By 2010, Yablokov et al. estimated a death toll of 112,000 to 125,000 liquidators.

Even the Russian authorities admit findings of liquidators aging prematurely, with a higher than average number having developed various forms of cancer, leukemia, somatic and neurological problems, psychiatric illnesses and cataracts.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs found a statistically significant increase of leukemia among Russian liquidators who were in service at Chernobyl in 1986 and 1987.

General populations inside and outside the former Soviet Union 

As with the liquidators, tracking the health of general populations exposed to the plume pathway of Chornobyl has been problematic. Within the Soviet Union, people moved away and neither they nor many living in other affected countries were tracked or monitored. While countless numbers may have died from their Chornobyl-related illnesses, equal or even greater numbers may have survived with debilitating or chronic physical as well as mental illnesses caused by the accident. 

Establishing exact numbers may never be possible. Media reports often rely on the 2003-2005 Chernobyl Forum report produced by the nuclear promoting International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency ignored its own data that indicated there would be 9,000 future fatal future cancers in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, claiming there would be no more than 4,000. Both numbers are gross underestimations. The report focused only on the most heavily exposed areas in making its predictions. It ignored the much larger populations in the affected countries as a whole, and in the rest of the world, who have been exposed to lower but chronic levels of radiation from Chornobyl.

In contrast, a comprehensive analysis by the late Soviet scientist, Alexey Yablokov and colleagues, examined more than 5,000 Russian studies. They concluded that almost a million premature deaths would result from Chornobyl. Meanwhile, the TORCH report (The Other Report on Chernobyl), by Dr. Ian Fairlie, predicts between 30,000 and 60,000 excess cancer deaths worldwide due to the accident.

More than half the Chornobyl fallout landed outside of the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia — in Europe, Asia and North America. Fallout from Chornobyl contaminated about 40% of Europe’s surface. Immediately after the accident, thyroid cancer was particularly rampant in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, where no prophylactic remedy in the form of potassium iodide pills was offered. Consequently, as Baverstock and Williams found in 2006, “by far, the most prominent health consequence of the accident is the increase in thyroid cancer among those exposed as children . . . particularly in children living close to the reactor.”

In contrast, Poland, where potassium iodide was distributed, experienced relatively low rates of thyroid cancers. While thyroid cancer is considered one of the more treatable kinds of cancers, this does not mean it should be viewed as an acceptable consequence of a nuclear power plant accident. Such diseases — especially among children — impact emotional, social, and physical wellbeing. In the former Soviet Union, those operated on bear a scare referred to grimly as the “Chornobyl necklace.”

Dr. Wladimir Wertelecki, a physician and geneticist, has conducted research, particularly focused on Polissia, Ukraine. There he found clear indications of altered child development patterns, or teratogenesis. Wertelecki noted birth defects and other health disturbances among not only those who were adults at the time of the Chornobyl disaster, but their children who were in utero at the time and, most disturbingly, their later offspring.

Important research has also been conducted on psychological effects. Pierre Flor-Henry and others examined some of the psychological disorders resulting from Chornobyl and found a clinical pathology related to radiation exposure. Flor-Henry found that schizophrenia and chronic fatigue syndrome among a high percentage of liquidators were accompanied by organic changes in the brain. This suggested that various neurological and psychological illnesses could be caused by exposure to radiation levels between 0.15 and 0.5 sieverts.

There are of course many other non-cancerous diseases caused by nuclear accidents that release radioactivity. A peak in Down Syndrome cases was observed in newborns born in 1987 in Belarus, one year after the Chornobyl nuclear accident. This phenomenon has been found around other nuclear sites. Abnormally high rates of Down Syndrome were found in the Dundalk, Ireland population possibly tied to the operation of the Sellafield nuclear waste reprocessing plant across the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England.

Read full Thunderbird: Chornobyl: The Facts.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the Executive Director of Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International. She is the author of the book, No To Nuclear. Why Nuclear Power Destroys Lives, Derails Climate Progress And Provokes War, published by Pluto Press. Any opinions are her own.

April 24, 2026 Posted by | Reference, safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Chernobyl first-responder reveals lifelong health damage 40 years after working in deadly radiation zone

Sergei Belyakov worked as a ‘biorobot liquidator’ cleaning up Chernobyl after its 1986 nuclear meltdown.

LAD Bible, 19 Apr 2026 , Brenna Cooper

In April 1986, Sergei Belyakov was fishing along the Dnieper River when he noticed that the water level had dropped significantly, a sign of an industrial accident further upstream.

Just days before, he’d seen the state news broadcaster briefly mention an incident at Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant in the north of the country.

“They were casually saying there was an accident at the nuclear power plant, and there were a few casualties, but it had all been taken care of,” Sergei recalled.

The assistant professor initially believed there had been some form of industrial accident at the plant, but what would unfold would go on to be one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

Chernobyl disaster: 40 years on

In the early hours of the morning on 26 April 1986, technicians at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, were performing a routine test on the reactor when a fatal design flaw caused it to explode, releasing more than 100 radioactive elements into the atmosphere.

The consequences of the explosion would be catastrophic, with harmful radiation spreading as far north as Sweden and even reaching the US East Coast.

Four decades on from the disaster, National Geographic has released a four-part documentary series, titled Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown, featuring first-hand accounts from those who witnessed the disaster and its aftermath.

After initially attempting to cover up the worst of the disaster, government officials leaned on national pride and propaganda to entice volunteers to help in the cleanup.

Around 600,000 people, referred to as liquidators, were drafted in from across Ukraine and the wider Soviet Union to assist with the clean-up, each receiving a radiation dose of 2000 roentgen an hour, equivalent to four times the lethal dose, in exchange for their work.

Sergei, then an assistant professor from the Ukrainian State Chemical Technology University in Dnipro, was one of such volunteers. Believing his background in military chemistry would be beneficial to the clean-up, Sergei travelled to the exclusion zone and worked for several weeks between July and September. With the job title of ‘biorobot liquidator’, Sergei’s work involved turning over top-level soil, spraying down buildings and shovelling graphite from the roof of reactor No. 4.

His work on the roof brought him just footsteps away from the open reactor, an area where experts say just 30 to 45 seconds of exposure would be lethal. With only a respirator and two sheets of lead for protection, Sergei made six trips up onto the roof – and the health consequences of his work still linger today.

“I still have some [problems], yes,” Sergei explained in an interview with LADbible. “Strangely enough, now, after all these years, and it’s… this is one of the things people don’t realise, that how radiation hits you.”

The impact of radiation exposure on his health was near instant. Aged 30 at the time, he began to experience immediate headaches, nasal congestion and difficulty looking into the sunlight.

After his 42 days in the exclusion zone ended, Sergei returned home with 1,000 Rubles, roughly £2,500 in today’s money and the equivalent of ‘five times’ his monthly salary at the time.

However, the health issues would continue. A ‘high-level’ basketball player before the explosion, Sergei also suffered with ‘severe fatigue’, with it taking around ‘a year and a half’ for the university professor to get back onto the court.

“[My] immune system suffered, I had problems with [my] kidneys,” he said.

“[I] had problems with my liver, my blood work was laughable at the time when I came back. I mean, white blood cells were miserable.”……………………………………………………………

April 23, 2026 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Zaporizhzhia NPP loses external power for the second time in a week, IAEA investigates

Kyiv • UNN, April 17 2026,

The Zaporizhzhia NPP has temporarily lost all external power for the fourteenth time

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant temporarily lost all external power supply, which was subsequently restored. This was reported by the IAEA, which is currently studying the situation and investigating the incident, writes UNN.

Details

According to the agency, the incident occurred in the evening. External power was restored approximately 40 minutes later.

The cause of the outage is currently unknown and is being investigated by specialists on site.ime since the start of the war. The IAEA is conducting an investigation due to critical nuclear safety risks.


Ministry of Energy confirms 13th complete blackout of Zaporizhzhia NPP; parts of 6 regions without power due to Russian attacks14.04.26, 10:52 • 23755 views

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated that this is the second such incident in less than a week and the 14th since the beginning of the full-scale war.

The loss of external power supply underscores the ongoing critical nuclear safety situation– he noted.

The IAEA team at the plant continues to monitor and investigate the circumstances of the incident. The agency emphasizes that such failures pose a serious risk to nuclear safety. https://unn.ua/en/news/zaporizhzhia-npp-loses-external-power-for-the-second-time-in-a-week-iaea-investigates

April 22, 2026 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Chernobyl at risk of ‘catastrophic’ collapse as haunting new images of nuclear site emerge

It’s nearly 40 years since the world’s most terrifying nuclear disaster and rare access in side the stricken plant show how it looks today

By Johnny Goldsmith, Picture Editor, 14 Apr 2026, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/gallery/chernobyl-risk-catastrophic-collapse-haunting-37009206

As the war in Ukraine continues to rage, haunting new images have emerged from inside the site of the world’s most terrifying nuclear catastrophe.

AFP photographer Genya Savilov alongside Greenpeace have been given rare access inside the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.

An uncontrolled collapse of the internal radiation shell at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine could increase the risk of radioactivity release in the environment, Greenpeace have warned.

Our gallery reveals the eerie reality of the plant today, nearly 40 years after the 1986 explosion sent radioactive fallout spewing across the globe.

It was on 26th April 1986 when an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine caused radioactive fallout to begin spewing into the atmosphere.

Dozens of people were killed in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, while the long-term death toll from radiation poisoning is believed to number in the thousands.

April 19, 2026 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Chernobyl could face ‘catastrophic’ collapse as repairs stall following Russian drone strike.

euro news, By Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom,  14/04/2026 

Failure to repair the protective structure around the nuclear site could unleash ‘highly radioactive dust’ that ‘does not recognise borders’, experts warn.

A potential collapse of the internal radiation shelter at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine could risk a release of radioactivity into the environment, Greenpeace warned on Tuesday (14 April).

It comes just days before the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, which remains the world’s worst nuclear disaster. On 26 April 1986, while Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, a reactor at the plant exploded, contaminating a vast area spanning Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Following the disaster, an inner steel-and-concrete structure, known as the sarcophagus, was hastily built around the destroyed reactor to prevent further radiation leaks.

Years later in November 2016, a high-tech metal dome called the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure was built, at a cost of €1.5 billion, to reinforce the inner shell.

Why are experts concerned about Chernobyl?

……..While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) initially had not reported any radiation leaks, in December it confirmed that the drone impact had degraded the steel structure and that it no longer blocked radiation.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said that an inspection “confirmed that the [protective structure] had lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability, but also found that there was no permanent damage to its load-bearing structures or monitoring systems.”

Grossi added that while some repairs had taken place, “comprehensive restoration remains essential to prevent further degradation and ensure long-term nuclear safety”

Chernobyl requires an estimated €500 million in repairs

Last month, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot estimated the dome required almost €500 million in repairs.

“We presented this evening the first financial estimate of the damage caused by this drone which amounts to around €500 million,” said Barrot after chairing a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in March.

Greenpeace reported that despite some repair efforts, the protective shield has not yet been fully restored. The organisation warned that this increases the risk of radioactivity release, especially in the case of a collapse of the internal structure.

“That would be catastrophic because there’s four tonnes of dust, highly radioactive dust, fuel pellets, enormous amounts of radioactivity inside the sarcophagus,” senior nuclear specialist for Greenpeace Ukraine, Shaun Burnie, told media agency AFP earlier this month.

“And because the New Safe Confinement cannot be repaired at the moment, it cannot function as it was designed, there’s a possibility of radioactive releases,” Burnie added.

‘Radioactive particles do not recognise borders’

The deconstruction of unstable elements of the inner shell is crucial to prevent an uncontrolled collapse, Greenpeace said, but further works to the site have been impeded by Russia’s ongoing attacks.

In addition to Greenpeace’s warning, the power plant’s director Sergiy Tarakanov has also warned that if a rocket were to land near the facility, the structure could be at risk of collapsing due to the impact.

“And from what the 1986 accident showed us…the radioactive particles do not recognise borders,” Tarakanov added. https://www.euronews.com/2026/04/14/chernobyl-could-face-catastrophic-collapse-as-repairs-stall-following-russian-drone-strike

April 18, 2026 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Chernobyl at 40: The World’s Worst Nuclear Power Accident and Where It Stands Now

Alice Marchuk, Jack Goras, and Aaron Larson, Wednesday, April 1, 2026

 At 1:23 a.m. local time on April 26, 1986, a sudden and
uncontrollable power surge destroyed Unit 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant, located about 130 kilometers (km, 81 miles) north of Kyiv and just
20 km (12.5 miles) south of the Belarusian border. The explosion—followed
by fires that burned for 10 days—released up to 5% of the radioactive
reactor core into the atmosphere, scattering contamination across Belarus,
Ukraine, Russia, and much of Europe

. It remains the only accident in the
history of commercial nuclear power reactors where radiation-related
fatalities occurred, and its consequences—human, environmental,
political, and technical—continue to reverberate four decades later.

The 40th anniversary arrives at a moment when the Chernobyl site is anything
but a static memorial. Decommissioning of the plant’s three undamaged
reactors is underway. A massive dry spent fuel storage facility—the
largest of its kind in the world—is in the midst of a multi-year fuel
transfer campaign. And the New Safe Confinement (NSC, Figure 1), the
enormous arch-shaped structure that took more than a decade to design and
build, sustained significant damage from a drone strike in February 2025,
raising urgent questions about the long-term security of the site in a
country still at war.

 Power Magazine 1st April 2026, https://www.powermag.com/chernobyl-at-40-the-worlds-worst-nuclear-power-accident-and-where-it-stands-now/

April 6, 2026 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Ukraine actively involved in US-Israeli aggression against Iran: Envoy to UN

Monday, 30 March 2026, https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/03/30/766089/Ukraine-actively-involved-in-US-Israeli-aggression-against-Iran–Envoy-to-UN-

A senior Iranian diplomat condemns Ukraine’s admission to the dispatch of “hundreds of experts” to the region to confront Iran, saying Kiev is actively participating in the military aggression launched by the United State and the Israeli regime against the Islamic Republic.

Iranian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani made the remark in a letter to Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres and president of the UN Security Council on Monday.

“Ukraine’s admission that it has dispatched ‘hundreds of experts’ to the region apparently to help some Persian Gulf governments to confront Iran is in its essence considered to be providing financial and operative support for an unlawful military aggression, led by the United States of America and the Israeli regime, against Iran, which began on February 28, 2026.”

He said Iran rejects all unfounded accusations leveled by the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN which are devoid of any credible evidence and have been made with the clear aim of diverting attention from the ongoing US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Such allegations also intended to whitewash the horrific crimes committed by the US and Israel against civilians and non-military infrastructure, he said.

“Such interference is not accidental. It exposes active participation in and facilitation of the illegal use of force against a sovereign state and raises serious concerns within the framework of international law, including the principles governing state responsibility and the prohibition of aiding or abetting in the commission of internationally wrongful acts.”

“Ukraine’s illegal acts constitute participation in an act of aggression and violate the fundamental prohibition on the use of force enshrined in Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter,” he added.

Furthermore, the envoy reiterated, Ukraine’s attempt to justify or normalize the targeting of critical infrastructure is deeply concerning and inconsistent with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

Earlier on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters that linking the conflict in Ukraine to the current developments in West Asia, particularly after the US-Israel military aggression against Iran, is a “very catastrophic miscalculation.”

In response to a question about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to provide military assistance to the US allies in the region, Baghaei expressed hope that the countries in the region will be wise enough not to allow such a person, who exposed his country to a very destructive war over the past four years, to pursue his objectives.

April 6, 2026 Posted by | Iran, Israel, politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

EBRD donors back plan to repair Chornobyl’s protective shield

 Donors to the International Chornobyl Cooperation Account (ICCA), managed by the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), have endorsed
plans for early engineering and procurement works that will pave the way
for potential repairs to the New Safe Confinement (NSC) at the Chornobyl
Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine.

A Russian drone strike in February 2025
damaged the NSC, the giant structure built to contain the remains of
Reactor Four and enable the safe dismantling of the original sarcophagus,
which was hastily built after the 1986 accident.

Preliminary assessments by
Novarka 2 (comprising the original NSC designer-builder Bouygues Travaux
Publics and Vinci Construction Grands Projets) estimated that the corrosion
of the steel arch threatened the long-term safety of the NSC, and that work
was needed to restore the structure to full functionality by 2030. Repairs
could cost at least €500 million.

 EBRD 1st April 2026, https://www.ebrd.com/home/news-and-events/news/2026/ebrd-donors-back-plan-to-repair-chornobyl-s-protective-shield.html

April 5, 2026 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Economy ‘Collapsing’

The only real solution to the Ukrainian problem is to accept the Russian peace terms.

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, Global Research, March 29, 2026, https://www.globalresearch.ca/ukrainian-economy-collapsing/5920470

Even Ukrainian authorities are beginning to admit the serious crisis affecting the country.

Recently, the head of the Kiev regime’s finance sector confirmed that the country is going through a catastrophic situation, showing deep concerns about the regime’s future.

This clearly shows how the nationalist junta in Kiev is rapidly destroying the country – something that could be avoided if the authorities agreed to make peace with Russia.

During a speech to the Ukrainian parliament on March 26, Daniil Getmantsev, chairman of the Finance, Tax and Customs Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, said that Ukraine is indebted and unable to pay all the expenses accumulated since the beginning of the conflict. He expressed concerns about the future of the Ukrainian economy and “sovereignty,” considering the country’s growing debts with major global financial institutions.

Getmantsev primarily denounced the country’s debts to the EU, the IMF, and the World Bank. He emphasized that Ukraine is already indebted to these organizations and does not appear to be in a position to repay this debt anytime soon. Therefore, the tendency is for the country to continue contracting more loans and becoming increasingly indebted.

The official explained some of the numbers behind the crisis. Ukraine failed to pay the installments of the loan from the EU’s “Ukraine Facility” program. Thus, the country missed out on part of the expected funding, as it failed to fulfill its part of the agreement.

He drew attention to the situation and warned Ukrainian parliamentarians about the current dangers. According to Getmantsev, it is possible that Ukrainians are close to “losing” the country because of this crisis. Therefore, he urges local politicians to act quickly to prevent the worst-case scenario. He believes immediate reforms are necessary, as well as greater integration with the EU, an audit of public spending, and a reform of the Ukrainian social security system.

“In 2025, we failed to meet 14 indicators of the Ukraine Facility. And because of this, we did not receive 3.9 billion euros (…) Moreover, 300 million of that amount is being lost completely in the first quarter [as] we have already failed to meet 5 out of 5 indicators (…) We can lose the country like this (…( Today is not the time to hide from responsibility, not the time for populism, not the time to look for popular decisions (…) It is the time for systematic work, European integration, deregulation, pension reform, an audit of state expenditures, and bringing the economy out of the shadows” he said.

This makes it clear that not even the regime’s own officials can hide the Ukrainian reality anymore. The country’s crisis has reached such a critical point that all sides are gradually admitting that it is impossible to maintain the current situation in the long term. With the decrease in international aid and constant losses on the battlefield, Ukraine has entered a critical phase in the conflict – being extremely vulnerable and close to collapse on several levels, mainly militarily and economically.

The previous attitude of Ukrainian and Western propaganda was to deny the crisis and claim that Ukraine had the economic and military situation under control. These lies helped keep the Ukrainian war machine active for a long time, but Ukraine’s losses caused European public opinion to change its attitude on the subject – which generated popular pressure in the West against continued aid programs.

Furthermore, Europe itself has reduced its capacity for aid. With the energy and economic crisis resulting from anti-Russian sanctions, added to constant international instability, Europe is entering a phase of social insecurity, making it more prudent to control spending than to continue systematically sending money to Ukraine. Although this money is often delivered in the form of loans, it seems certain that Ukraine will not be able to repay it. And even loans secured by the delivery of rare earth minerals and natural resources are unsafe, since exploration will be hampered during hostilities.

In fact, the pro-war lobby in the EU is still strong, which is why aid continues, but the material circumstances have forced the bloc to significantly reduce assistance – which has further worsened the crisis for Ukrainians. Now, there is no longer any way to disguise reality. Ukraine is trapped in a crisis from which it cannot easily emerge. No matter how much local authorities speak of “urgent measures” or “necessary reforms,” ​​the country will certainly not be able to overcome its current difficulties while the conflict with Russia continues.

In this sense, the correct course of action for Kiev would be simply to accept the Russian peace terms and establish an agreement to end hostilities. Any other “measure” would be a mistake, incapable of saving the country from absolute collapse.

April 3, 2026 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine | Leave a comment

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