When the Russian forces hurriedly captured a relatively unguarded Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine hours after President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of the country on February 24, he took back the Great Russian Dream story 36 years back from where it all began.
Chernobyl was the site where, many believe, the story of Soviet disintegration began in 1986. One of the nuclear reactors leaked and led to the biggest ever nuclear power tragedy in history.
It happened on the night of April 24-25. An engineer picked it. The matter reached the top of the communist hierarchy. But the Soviet administration bent every rule to prevent the lid from blowing up.
The Soviets were due for their biggest annual celebration of May Day to commemorate the power of manual labour. But the week before, Chernobyl nuclear blast happened.
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The explosion pushed huge amounts of radioactive materials out into the air. Radiation levels soon rocketed dangerously high. It spread to neighbouring areas first and then to far-off zones. When high levels of radioactive radiation were detected in Sweden, the Chernobyl cover could not be maintained.
But before that, the Soviets refused to acknowledge the tragedy to their people and did not evacuate about 30,000 residents of the nearest city, Pripyat for almost three days. People kept falling ill. People were moved from their homes first on April 27.
More surprise, as the Soviets went ahead with their May 1 celebration — the biggest holiday in the Soviet calendar. So much in a fix was the Soviet administration of Mikhail Gorbachev that it failed to decide how to respond.
This was the time when Gorbachev was unveiling his reforms — perestroika and glasnost. They gave citizens the right to freedom of expression. In fact, journalists were encouraged to write freely about the shortcomings of the communist regime so that loopholes could be plugged. Novel idea.
But the idea changed Soviet life. Freedom of expression meant the Chernobyl disaster becoming a subject of public discussion and debate. Dying people stirred public anger. Protests broke out against the Soviets.
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An exposé from Sweden made noise in Russia and other Soviet constituents. The Soviets remained mum, hoping to keep the disaster from the international community even though a huge amount of nuclear debris landed in Belarus across Ukraine’s border.
The first international alert came when a nuclear power plant in Sweden sounded an alarm about nuclear radiation leak.
An employee at the Forsmark nuclear power plant near Stockholm passed one of the radiation monitors on his way back from the restroom. It showed high levels of radiation coming from his shoes.
Swedish staff panicked at first, taking it as an accident at their own nuclear power plant. However, a thorough scan revealed that the real source of the radiation was some 1,100 km away in Chernobyl. The world knew and the Soviets were forced to admit it.
The protests over the disaster in Chernobyl nuclear plant, barely 150 km from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in respective constituents of the Soviet Union, sub-national identities became dominant. Voices of separation emerged. In four years, doom dawned on the Soviet empire.
Putin is said to have been in Moscow and Leningrad (now St Petersburg) during those turbulent times as a KGB spy. He at times even worked with the protesters. But, Putin was devastated, observers say, when the Soviet Union broke up into 15 fragments.
It is said that despite 30 years having passed, Putin still has the “mindset” that refuses to let the Soviet collapse go. This is said to be the reason why Putin ordered the capture of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, whose one reactor caused the disaster, while three others were decommissioned by the Ukrainian government in 2000.
Chernobyl still has very high radiation levels. Experts believe the amount of clean-up that has happened in 36 years indicates that a total clearing of the Chernobyl nuclear plant may take another 50 years.
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This also means that if Putin keeps control of the Chernobyl nuclear site, he can use it to keep the West and its Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) troops away by threatening them with potential volumes of nuclear waste radiation.
With a Russian military coup in Ukraine imminent, Chernobyl could become Putin’s tool to undo Soviet collapse in at least one constituent of the USSR. The fall clock is wound back 36 years while the world could continue to debate the illegality of his Ukraine invasion and plans to counter his move over the next few years. Crimea happened in another February eight years ago.