April 26, 1986 reactor 4 of Chernobyl plant at Prypyat, Ukraine, explodes at 01:23:45 a.m.

Februrary 24, 2022 Russia invades Ukraine from Belarus entering through the exclusion zone at Prypyat.

February 14, 2025 a drone strikes the sarcophagus of the Chernobyl reactor, at 01:50 a.m.

Today, April 26, 2025 marks the 39º anniversary of the most dangerous nuclear accident in World History. The explosion scattered graphite and other radioactive materials out of the plant, to a radius of 30 km, and created a radioactive isotope cloud, which northwestern winds pushed away from Moscow, into the Baltics, Finland and Sweden. And it was Sweden—not Russia—which gave the alert on April 28, 1986, at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant. The initial detection was on workers' clothing and subsequent checks of the ground revealed elevated levels of radioactivity, leading to the investigation and eventual confirmation of the Chernobyl accident.

One of the first accounts of the after-effects appeared on the 1989 BBC documentary Chernobyl (rather a réportage) which nevertheless focuses on the effects on woods (the forest of miracles, later called the red forest), on agriculture, and on inhabitants, with a peculiar focus on the farmers who prefer to stay because it is their land. It also includes an ambiguous yet broad explanation for the causes of the disaster: a mix of human errors, plus a mistake on the design of RBMK type of nuclear reactors.

The first fiction film comes in 1991, Chernobyl: The Final Warning, a B-movie starring Jon Voight as Dr. Robert Gale, an american doctor and his efforts to treat the effects of radiation on a series of secondary characters. The film has the virtue of exposing the medical side of Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS), a serious illness that occurs when someone is exposed to high levels of radiation over a short period of time. The black burning of skin, the dissolution of veins and arteries, the need to proceed to stem cell transplant come to public light.

Next is the russo-canadian docudrama Secrets of the Chernobyl Control Room | Zero Hour (2004), a peculiar mix of an english narration with russian actors on the real location. This piece delves further on the harassment atmosphere among the plant workforce, focusing on the build-up of the tension on the hours preceding the catastrophe. It explains in detail the conditions: a test that was to be run in order to prevent a reactor meltdown. The piece exculpates the operators, with a final interview to the engineer Anatoly Dyatlov, who spent years in prison. He blames the “Atomic authorities” as the cause for the explosion.

On 2006 the BBC produces a new docufiction, Chernobyl Nuclear - Surviving Disaster, which for the first time brings attention to the figure of Valeri Legasov, the russian engineer who identifies the structural failure of RBMK type of nuclear reactors, and his struggle to push forward the truth in a Soviet Union more interested in deflecting their responsibility and leaving the human error as the official explanation for the disaster. The docufiction morbidly reenacts the suicide of Legasov, exactly two years after the disaster, and follows with a Legasov-portrayed character who narrates his own story.

On 2013, the russians produced Inseparable, a very long (3 hours) TV movie focusing on the drama of survivors of the incident. Slow-paced, choral and soap-operish, the film seems to have been made solely to continue distracting on the real causes of the reactor’s failure, following Russia’s trend to “control narratives.”

As a counterpoint, the 2019 HBO 5 episode miniseries Chernobyl is strongly based on the 2006 docufiction, delving further and in extreme detail on the devious russian bureaucracy trying to omit, avoid or deflect the responsibilty of the accident and its after-effects, against the efforts of Legasov and other scientists. The miniseries received both critical and audience acclaim, as well as numerous awards, reinstating a worldwide interest in the real story behind the catastrophe.

Under the initiative of ukrainian film producer Alexander Rodnyansky, the russian motion picture Chernobyl 1986 (2021) (aka: Chernobyl Abyss) came to fruition. Beautifully shot, directed and starred by Danila Kozlovsky (an actor with notoriously high starpower), both actor/director and producer recognized the impact of the HBO miniseries and its detailed exposure of the failings of the Soviet system, therefore deciding instead to focus on the human story, particularly on the 3 firemen, whose individual heroism prevents the disaster escalating even further at great cost to them. The film was released on april 2021 in Russia and is currently available from Netflix.

{Spoiler: the core of the story is nonetheless false, the 3 firemen did not die in real life. But I digress.}

I finally refer to a rather fresh, juvenile, 2-hour long video-for-Youtube done by the Sam and Colby channel (with a notable 14 million subscribers), who produce several travelogue-kind-a-movies where they are the main characters of an extended, anecdotal réportage. This piece is worth it above all for the HQ video images, particularly by the use of drones and fast-paced hype of its young creators. It provides a visual update of the present situation of the site, and it was completed in september 2021, just months before the russian invasion of Ukraine. Yet, it is full of inaccuracies, for which the previous films provide a better cognition of the scientific, social and political aspects of the disaster.

{During the russian invasion on feb 24, 2022, the radioactive levels of Prypyat raised again, which could only be attributed to the column of tanks and soldiers that went through it into Ukrainian territory. But I digress again.}

This brief selected audiovisual history of Chernobyl nevertheless treats the catastrophe as a situation of the past, in a state of conclusion. And this is a major failure, because we still have ahead at least 100 years more of the site’s radiation to protect the world from.

Only the first documentary confronts the situation of what to do into the future, by depicting the sarcophagus, a structure specifically built to contain the outpouring of radiation into the atmosphere. The first sarcophagus started construction 24 days after the disaster; the steel and concrete structure took 206 days to build. Due to high radiation levels, it was impossible to directly screw down the nuts and bolts or apply any direct welding to the sarcophagus, so the seams of the structure could not be fully sealed.

By 1988, Soviet engineers evaluated the first sarcophagus would last 20 to 30 years before requiring maintenance. At any rate, rainwater leaking into the structure due to the lack of sealing provided a major hazard as it became radioactive and then passed through the reactor floor into the soil. Thus a second sarcophagus needed to be designed.

With a height of 110 meters (taller than the Statue of Liberty), and a cost of USD 2 billion dollars, the hangar-like structure was built on rails, so it could be adequately sealed and then slided over the first sarcophagus, to ensure protection for 100 years. It was completed in 2016. The resulting structure is an impressive sight to behold.

But just as it became fully operational, in 2025 on St. Valentine’s Day, February 14 at 01:50 a.m., the second sarcophagus was hit by a drone, opening a gap of 6 meters of diameter, that tore through the two ceiling layers.

Ukraine intelligence signaled the alarm of a possible man-made attack to the radioactive plant as early as March 11, 2022, 2 weeks after the Russo-Ukrainian War 3-day Special Military Operation had begun (and failed.)

The strike took place a day before the start of the Munich Security Conference, and Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy decided to open his speech referring to the incident:

(…) this year, a country that was not even invited still made its presence known, a country that everyone talks about here, not in a good way. The night before Munich this year a Russian attack drone struck the sarcophagus covering the ruined Force reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was a modified Shahid drone, (…) a technology drone passed on to Russia. Its warhead carried at least 15 kilograms of explosives and we see this as a deeply symbolic move by Russia, by Putin (…)

According to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the drone that conducted the strike was a HESA Shahed 136, an Iranian-design type of drone. Iran supplied such drones to Russia throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and its use by Russia was well documented during the war. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski also said that a Russian Shahed drone had struck the plant. The Russian government denied allegations of striking the power plant, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating that "our military doesn't do that" and suggesting that Ukrainian officials made the claim to disrupt peace negotiations. Marcel Plichta of the Centre for Global Law and Governance at the University of St Andrews in Scotland contributed that "Russia frequently uses attacks like this to regain control of the narrative".

Shahed drones are highly accurate in their attacks. Although the drone strike could have been deliberately aimed, it was impossible to be sure due to the attack with over 100 drones that night. UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published a report confirming the strike and adding “This was clearly a very serious incident, with a drone hitting and damaging a large protective structure at a major nuclear site. As I have stated repeatedly during this devastating war, attacking a nuclear facility is an absolute no-go, it should never happen,” Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said. “It is especially concerning as it comes as we are also seeing an increase in military activity in the area around the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. The IAEA remains committed to doing everything we can to help prevent a nuclear accident. Judging by recent events, nuclear safety remains very much under threat,” he added.

Although at first the incident seemed to be controlled swiftly, a report from the Kyiev Independent published just yesterday sustains quite the contrary:

As the journalist states, this is mind-boggling (…) what was the point of the attack?

Beyond an intent by Russia’s hybrid-warfare tactics to control narratives, this is a threat to the World, Russia included. Not only is it a psychopathic action, but… shouldn’t this be enough to trigger NATO’s Article 5, and set the wheels in motion for a defensive action from NATO? The Chernobyl attack can clearly be considered a threat of weapons of mass destruction, a situation way more dangerous than the justification that gave way to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom (the Iraq War.)

It is impressive how international institutions remain weak on the evident face of Russia’s constant aggressions. Such hipocrisy has been steadily denounced by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in broader terms: measures are not being enacted, the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants are not being complied.

On march 2023 the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin for “the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute). The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian occupied territory at least from 24 February 2022. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, (i) for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute), and (ii) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission, and who were under his effective authority and control, pursuant to superior responsibility (article 28(b) of the Rome Statute).”

Yet, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa dismissed arresting Putin during the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg on august 2023, stating that any attempt to arrest Vladimir Putin if he visits South Africa would be a declaration of war against Russia. Even though South Africa is signatory to the ICC. At any rate, Putin cautiously decided not to attend, instead dialing in via a video call.

To add insult to injury, Trump enacted an Executive Order on february 5, 2025, imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court and even on its employees, to discourage the enactment of its arrest warrants, who also affect Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

In this post-truth world, where propaganda overwhelms and responsibilities are harder to assign by the day, international institutions truly are the last hope. Chernobyl 2.0 is being seriously underestimated in its significance, just as Zelenskyy highlighted at Munich.

Post-scriptum:

Christopher Thomas Knight--a man better known as the North Pond Hermit—walked away from his life one day in Maine, to spend 27 years hiding in the woods. He lived of stealing from nearby homes, and had almost no contact with human beings during his period of isolation. Once caught by the authorities, he never articulated his reasons for such action, stating only that he remembered taking his decision shortly after the Chernobyl disaster. Was the event a motivation?

As for me, I was 13 years old when the nuclear accident happened. I remember my mother coming once into my unkept, chaotic room and stating: “Gosh, this room looks like Chernobyl!”