The specter of Chernobyl contamination was embodied this week by the action of Russian soldiers who invaded that area of northern Ukraine. A convoy of tanks and supply trucks traveled several times through the so-called “red forest” (because of the color the trees took because of the nuclear explosion), the most polluted area of the exclusion zone traced after the 1986 disaster. The military heavy vehicles raised a radioactive dust that could not only contaminate them, but formed a radioactive cloud that could cause another disaster throughout the region and even reach Kiev, which is 100 kilometers from the site.
Two senior employees of the plant that monitors pollution levels in Chernobyl told Reuters that they observed a considerable increase in radiation starting on February 24, the day the Russian invasion began. The soldiers are not equipped with radiation suits and the vehicles were not decontaminated. The radioactive dust was probably inhaled by the troops and tanks and trucks continue to spread it wherever they travel. One of the inspectors said he had spoken to a group of very young Russian soldiers who “had no idea where they were or knew that there had been a nuclear explosion in Chernobyl.”
The State Nuclear Inspectorate of Ukraine remains responsible for the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel and for monitoring the concrete-coated remains of the exploded reactor. It is in that office that the two people who gave their testimony work on the condition that their names were not revealed.
The Russian Ministry of Defense assures that the plant's radiation levels, which it maintains under its control, are within normal levels and that its actions prevented possible “nuclear provocations” by Ukrainian nationalists. The Kremlin had previously denied that its forces had jeopardized nuclear facilities inside Ukraine.
When the nuclear disaster struck on April 26, 1986, tens of kilometers of the pine forest closest to the plant was dyed red. Since then it has been considered the most polluted place on the planet outdoors. The outer zone and the city of Chernobyl, located 18 km away, and the village of Pripiat, 2.7 km away, was opened to traffic with permission through. But the red forest cannot pass through even the workers of what remains of the nuclear power plant. “A convoy of several kilometers of military vehicles passed right behind our office and crossed the red forest raising a large column of dust. Safety sensors began to sound showing a high level of pollution. And this happened again several times in the following days,” said one of the employees.
The Russian guards who seized the plant ordered that no information be released about what happened and the employees had to continue working locked up in their offices for a whole month. Last week, they allowed a new guard to replace them. When they arrived in the city of Slavutych, where most of the plant's personnel live and which is still in the hands of Ukrainian defenses, they were able to inform the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky what had happened.
The State Agency for the Management of the Exclusion Zone of Ukraine said on 27 February that the last record it had on a sensor near nuclear waste storage facilities, before losing control of the monitoring system, showed that the absorbed radiation dose was seven times higher than normal. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on 25 February that radiation levels at the Chernobyl site reached 9.46 microsieverts per hour, but remained “within an operational range” recorded in the exclusion zone since its creation. Safety levels, according to IAEA standards listed on the agency's official website, are up to 1 millisievert per year for the general population and 20 millisieverts per year for those who are professionally engaged in radiation.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 2,600 square kilometer exclusion zone that prevents access to the population. When reactor number four melted as a result of human error, it released huge amounts of radioactive particles and gases leaving 400 times more radioactivity in the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
In some areas, where radiation levels have decreased over time, plants and animals returned and reproduced in significant numbers. But in areas of high radioactivity, the size and diversity of bird, mammal and insect populations are significantly smaller than in the “clean” parts of the exclusion zone.
The professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina, Timothy Mousseau, has been working in nuclear disaster zones such as Chernobyl and Fukuyima, in Japan for 20 years. He has access to classified information and wrote on The Conversation site:
“Sensors placed by the Ukrainian EcoCenter in Chernobyl in the event of accidents or forest fires showed dramatic jumps in radiation levels along major roads and next to reactor facilities as of 9pm on February 24, 2022. It was when Russian invaders arrived in the area from neighboring Belarus,” he explained. “As the increase in radiation levels was most evident in the vicinity of the reactor buildings, it was feared that the containment structures had been damaged, although the Russian authorities have denied this possibility. The sensor network stopped reporting abruptly in the early hours of February 25 and did not restart until March 1, 2022, so the full extent of the disturbance in the region by troop movements is unclear, but it is certain that high level of radiation affected anyone who was there.”
Russian generals set up the base of the northern military operations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone because it is wide and unpopulated, connected by a double-handed road that connects directly with Kiev. In fact, it became a large parking lot suitable for housing the thousands of vehicles of an invading army. The main electricity network that supplies the Ukrainian capital also passes through it, although the plant itself has not generated electricity since 2000, when the last of the four reactors was shut down.
It is very dangerous for Chernobyl to become a target of the Russian or Ukrainian air forces. A bomb at that location could blow up a reservoir containing more than 2.4 million kilograms of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. This is the highly polluting material produced by a nuclear reactor during normal operation. A direct impact on the plant's spent fuel pools or dry storage facilities could release into the environment a much larger amount of radioactive material than the original melts and explosions of 1986 and therefore cause an environmental disaster of global proportions. Mistakes always occur in a war. And Russian precision missiles are having a failure rate of 60%, according to the evaluation of the Center for War Studies.
And another point of concern is the possibility of forest fires occurring in areas of the exclusion zone where soldiers are cantoned. There they set fires to cook and warm themselves during the harsh nights of very low temperatures. In the last three decades, there have been several forest fires and radioactive rains with serious consequences for fauna and flora. “There is no 'safe' level when it comes to ionizing radiation. The dangers to life are directly proportional to the level of exposure,” Professor Mousseau wrote.
If the war worsens and there is any attack that damages the radiation containment facilities in Chernobyl, or any of Ukraine's other 15 nuclear reactors, the extent of the damage to the population and the environment would be catastrophic. For now, we know that the young conscripts who remain in the Red Forest are already in grave danger.