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00:42At the end of April 1986,
00:45a cloud of radioactive cesium spreads over the whole of Europe.
00:50It first moves over Eastern Europe to Asia
00:54and finally over southern Germany and Austria to Great Britain.
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01:02Fear spreads across Europe.
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01:10The starting point of the cesium cloud
01:12is the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
01:15No one knows how to stop the nuclear chain reaction
01:18in Unit 4 of the exploded reactor.
01:23Unstoppable radioactive material escapes.
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01:431986.
01:46The Chernobyl disaster.
01:49The end of all allusions about nuclear power.
01:53How does the accident at the power plant happen?
01:56Why is Moscow silent?
01:59And what is being covered up to this day?
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02:04The search for the truth.
02:08Chernobyl.
02:10Utopia in flames.
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02:18In May 1986, a few days after the disaster,
02:22Nikolai Steinberg arrives at Chernobyl.
02:26He had helped build the power plant as a young nuclear engineer.
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02:51Ozone is a product of nuclear fission.
02:55Steinberg's most important tool becomes the DP5,
02:59a radiation-measuring device devised in case of nuclear war.
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03:22Chief architect Maria Protsenko
03:24is working with the crisis team of Pripyat,
03:27the city near the nuclear power plant has been evacuated.
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04:11With this pass, Maria Protsenko is granted access to the evacuated zone.
04:17She documents the radiation exposure of the city
04:20and the nuclear power plant daily.
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04:42At Unit 4, the prevailing radiation levels are lethal
04:46after only a few minutes.
04:50Moscow mobilizes tens of thousands of Soviet army soldiers.
04:55The soldiers are subject to exposure limits
04:58that are twice as high as those for civilians.
05:06Their mission, to remove radioactive debris
05:09from the exploded power plant.
05:14They're referred to as the liquidators.
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05:32The liquidators wear special masks
05:35to protect against the alpha radiation that damages the lungs.
05:40They're dressed in heavy fabric
05:42to safeguard against beta radiation that causes burns.
05:47And they don lead vests that guard against gamma radiation
05:51that damages genetic material.
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05:58The greatest danger is on the roof of the turbine hall.
06:02The soldiers have only about 90 seconds
06:04to throw a few shovels of radioactive debris
06:07into the reactor maw.
06:09Then they have to quickly retreat
06:12from the deadly radiation field.
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06:33Nuclear engineer Nikolai Steinberg
06:36calculates the radiation exposure for himself
06:39and his colleagues in the power plant.
06:42To protect his men,
06:43Steinberg requests special equipment from the Army.
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07:08A day later, the Soviet Army delivers what Steinberg requested,
07:12nuclear-capable armored personnel carriers
07:15to transport his people around the power plant site.
07:19Radiation-measuring devices are given to each of his crew.
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07:32This is the situation in the power plant in mid-May 1986.
07:37The building is also contaminated inside.
07:41The ventilation system is full of radioactive particles.
07:46Units one, two, and three are shut down
07:50but remain completely intact.
07:55Unit three is right next to the ruptured unit four.
07:59Unit four is a pile of rubble.
08:02The reactor lies wide open.
08:06The reactors of units one, two, and three are decommissioned
08:11but monitored day and night in shift operation.
08:15The young nuclear engineer, Alexei Breos,
08:18is also a member of the control team.
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08:36Since the day of the disaster,
08:39helicopters have been circling over unit four,
08:42dropping thousands of tons of material.
08:45The material, especially sand,
08:48is used for the nuclear reaction.
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09:36The Air Force makes desperate attempts
09:39to stop the nuclear chain reaction in the damaged reactor.
09:43To tackle this mammoth task,
09:46the entire Soviet Union has been deployed.
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10:19They plan to use neutron-poisoned boron
10:22to smother the nuclear chain reaction,
10:25lead to quell the radiation,
10:28dolomite rock to supply oxygen,
10:31and sand serves as a melting agent.
10:34The boron is a substance of discarded material
10:37mixed with uranium, graphite, and concrete
10:40to form a radioactive aggressive mass known as corium.
10:45It's a torrid 600 degrees Celsius.
10:49The corium threatens to burn through the reactor floor.
10:53Then the radioactivity contaminates the groundwater,
10:56and with it, the nearby Pripyat River,
10:59then the Dnieper, Kiev, and the Black Sea.
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11:12The government commission from Moscow orders drastic measures.
11:17A huge heat exchanger in a tunnel under the reactor
11:20serves to dissipate the heat from the corium.
11:24Hundreds of tunnel builders and miners
11:26from all over the Soviet Union are brought to Chernobyl.
11:30In May, they begin drilling the tunnel under Unit 4,
11:34130 meters from the open reactor.
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12:38After weeks of hard work in a contaminated environment,
12:43the tunnel is not needed.
12:46The concrete in the reactor floor
12:48is successfully restraining the corium.
12:51It's exactly what experienced nuclear engineers
12:54like Steinberg had predicted.
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13:09Nikolai Steinberg is one of the few
13:11high-ranking nuclear engineers on site.
13:14Eleven days after his arrival at the devastated power plant,
13:18Steinberg is appointed chief engineer
13:21of the nuclear power plant by the headquarters in Moscow.
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13:30His task is to bring Units 1, 2, and 3
13:33back online as quickly as possible.
13:36The Soviet Union needs the electricity from Chernobyl.
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14:43the epicenter of the event, under enormous dose load for the people involved,
14:48then does everything to get this power plant back up and running.
14:52But that's exactly the genuine Soviet way of dealing with problems.
14:58The socialist showcase town of Pripyat is about three kilometers away from the power plant.
15:03This is where the workers of a nuclear power facility had lived with their families.
15:09The once proud Otomograd stands empty, completely evacuated.
15:14The crisis team is certain it will be able to save the town and free it from radioactive fallout.
15:22At the end of May, there was still a thought about the resettlement of the town's residents.
15:34Every day, Maria Potsenko, the city's chief architect,
15:38calculates how large the areas contaminated by radioactive fallout are.
15:44She knows every roof and every facade of the prefabricated building blocks,
15:50which are up to 11 stories high.
15:53Thousands of Soviet Army soldiers tirelessly try to clean the buildings.
16:21As a mother, I felt sorry for the guys who worked there.
16:35Then you look at the data before and after the disactivation,
16:39and you see that they are minimal.
16:41They did a useless job, because that's what the government commission decided.
16:50Of the 200 tons of radioactive material from the reactor,
16:548 tons had already escaped by the end of May.
16:588 tons of highly toxic, invisible radioactive particles spread all over Europe.
17:07In certain areas of Western Germany, the fallout from Chernobyl is particularly strong.
17:13For example, in Bavaria, in southern Germany.
17:18In the small Bavarian town of Wackersdorf,
17:21one of the most significant projects of the West German nuclear industry
17:25has been under construction since the mid-1980s.
17:29It's a plant for uranium and plutonium fuel elements.
17:36The Chernobyl disaster becomes the catalyst for the anti-nuclear movement in West Germany.
17:42In mid-May 1986, there are massive protests in Wackersdorf.
17:47Hundreds are injured.
17:49In the cities, uncertainty continues to grow.
18:13I was afraid at first.
18:17Do you feel misinformed?
18:19We are not informed at all. We don't know what's going on.
18:22You don't know where it's coming from.
18:25If you could see something, there would be a ray of light.
18:29The Chernobyl disaster is eroding confidence in the safety of nuclear power.
18:34In a general debate in parliament,
18:36the Bundestag argues about the future of German nuclear energy.
18:41You just said that we should use nuclear technology
18:46to the extent that it can be used responsibly.
18:53According to what we know now,
18:56and as a result of the Chernobyl disaster,
19:00the use, as you foresee it, is not responsible.
19:0690% of the radioactive fallout
19:10drops in the immediate vicinity of the Chernobyl power plant,
19:14contaminating northern Ukraine, parts of Russia and Belarus.
19:19With cesium-137.
19:23With plutonium-239 or 240.
19:30Or with americium-241.
19:34An extremely toxic and aggressive decay product of plutonium.
19:39These particles deteriorate only after hundreds of thousands of years.
19:53After evacuating their hometown of Pripyat,
19:56Maria Portsenko and her family live in a small village in northern Ukraine.
20:05While we were in Maryanovka,
20:10we tried not to do anything.
20:13Because you can't.
20:21And there are berries.
20:24You look at the strawberry, but you can't eat it.
20:28It's beautiful, tasty.
20:30And you know what it tastes like.
20:33And you understand that it's poison for you.
20:44People in northern Ukraine are repeatedly affected by radioactive fallout.
20:52At the end of June 1986,
20:55the government in Moscow admits defeat in the battle against radiation.
21:04Ukraine.
21:14The region around the nuclear power plant can no longer be saved.
21:20Around 130,000 people lose their homes and are resettled.
21:34Moscow.
21:40Due to the radioactive fallout,
21:42Moscow establishes a zone that has completely lost a human habitation for centuries.
21:49In total, 2,600 square kilometers are affected,
21:54including dozens of small towns and villages.
21:58And in the center is Pripyat,
22:01the Soviet Union's once prideful city.
22:12In the summer of 1986,
22:15Pripyat residents are allowed back into their homes and apartments
22:19to collect valuables, important papers, or a few belongings.
22:32Their stay is strictly regulated.
22:36After three to four hours, they have to leave the contaminated city again.
22:46Pripyat, which once stood for the Soviet Union's model city of the future,
22:51is a virtual ghost town.
22:54The former inhabitants lose their homes forever.
23:01Pripyat.
23:16My father came and said,
23:18we're not going back there,
23:20we're going to visit my grandmother,
23:22until we decide where we live,
23:24until we get an apartment in Kiev.
23:26But we're not going back to Pripyat.
23:31I flew to Almaty myself.
23:34I remember that from the plane's window,
23:37I saw for the first time such an unusual sunset or dawn,
23:44I don't even know.
23:54On the one hand, the sun,
23:56the red color of the clouds and the sky,
23:59and on the other hand, it's dark.
24:01It's like two halves.
24:03You know, like life before and life after.
24:11After every accident and disaster, there starts the blame game, right?
24:16And the dominant response,
24:22the dominant explanation after Chernobyl was,
24:25well, the operators on the job at the time messed up.
24:32At the beginning of July 1986,
24:35the Politburo of the Communist Party in Moscow
24:38meets in a top-secret session.
24:41The Government Commission's investigation report
24:44on the Chernobyl disaster is on the table.
24:50It was prepared by nuclear expert Valery Lagasov
24:54and Commission Head Boris Cherbina.
24:59In the secret meeting,
25:00Head of State and Party Chief Mikhail Gorbachev
25:03is confronted with the investigation's surprising results.
25:10Top on the agenda is the RBMK,
25:13the Chernobyl type of reactor.
25:17The reactor's design deficiencies
25:19override the mistakes of the operators.
25:22The main drawback of the reactor is the positive void coefficient.
25:27RBMK reactors are potentially dangerous.
25:34As a result, Gorbachev challenges
25:36one of the most powerful men in the Soviet Union at the meeting,
25:40the then 88-year-old Efim Slavsky.
25:45Slavsky is the father of the RBMK and head of the Shredmash,
25:50the Soviet Union's powerful nuclear industrial complex.
25:59Gorbachev, what can you say about the RBMK reactor?
26:05Slavsky, if the regulations are followed, then the reactor is safe.
26:09This is world-class technology.
26:12But what did they do at Chernobyl?
26:14Who did the test?
26:16A provincial engineer?
26:21The Soviet nuclear establishment is steadfast when it comes to the RBMK.
26:27Too much is at stake.
26:30The RBMK is the backbone of Soviet nuclear power.
26:40In 1986, 26 reactors at 6 sites in the Soviet Union
26:45are either online or under construction.
26:51In Chernobyl, Nikolai Steinberg has no idea about the power struggles in Moscow.
26:57He is supposed to bring units 1, 2 and 3 back online.
27:02All RBMK reactors.
27:05Steinberg is also well aware of the shortcomings of the RBMK.
27:21If there are no real causes of the accident, then you are safe for the future.
27:27That's why we insisted on conducting an experiment and we did it.
27:35At the beginning of August 1986,
27:38Steinberg decides to carry out a risky experiment during a shutdown of RBMK unit 1.
27:45Steinberg wants to prove the so-called positive void effect.
27:49He believes it's one of the main causes of the catastrophe.
27:53This causes the reactor to build up uncontrollably.
27:57It's due to the formation of steam bubbles in the uranium pressure tubes,
28:02especially at low power.
28:04Steinberg brings in experts from Moscow and Kiev as witnesses to the experiment.
28:09To instigate the effect, he gradually withdraws the cooling water from the reactor.
28:20It's an unusual operation to drain water from a reactor loaded with fuel.
28:26But we had to do it to understand the real characteristics of the reactor.
28:34Steinberg runs the simulation during a night shift.
28:38Hardly anyone is at the power plant.
28:41He drains the cooling water in the reactor pressure tubes.
28:45The water level in the reactor core drops.
28:48What he fears will happen, happens.
28:54The water in the pressure tubes begins to evaporate.
28:58Steam absorbs neutrons worse than water.
29:02There are billions more neutrons.
29:05More neutrons split more atomic nuclei.
29:09And nuclear fission increases.
29:12This increases the temperature and again more steam.
29:16Out of nowhere, the atomic activity in the reactor accelerates.
29:21This is the infamous positive void effect.
29:28At the last moment, Steinberg adds cooling water.
29:32That night, Steinberg saves the reactor, avoiding an explosion.
29:38The experiment proved for the first time the uncontrollable nature of the reactor's void effect.
29:46It's driving us into a corner.
29:53It's not a fourth, it's a third.
29:55It's uncontrollable.
29:57It accelerates, it's a bomb.
30:03The only thing we understood was what had happened.
30:07We really confirmed what had happened. That's all.
30:12The night shift on disaster night didn't have a chance.
30:17There was no way they could know what exactly was going on in the reactor.
30:25At the end of August, the Soviet Union presents the Government Commission's report
30:30on the nuclear reactor accident in Chernobyl to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
30:38The head of the delegation is, of all people, Valery Legasov,
30:43a top man of Shredmasch, whose ministry invented the RBMK
30:48and defended it against all criticism.
30:53Legasov was the deputy director of the Institute of Atomic Energy
30:57and he was sent to Vienna to present the designer's version of events.
31:03Simple as that.
31:05And he did.
31:08The world expects clarification from the Soviets
31:12and they present the presumed culprits to the world.
31:35How did Shredmasch behave after the accident?
31:50Legasov's report in Vienna is full of lies.
32:05So much more than the Soviets had ever presented internationally.
32:08So the international community ate it up.
32:12The Soviets' account puts the blame for the disaster solely on the personnel that night.
32:18It becomes the basis of the official report to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
32:24The lie of Vienna becomes the truth about Chernobyl.
32:29Valery Legasov was the one who actually took over the job
32:34and then later struggled with it,
32:41with the way in which the accident was handled.
32:45For this reason, a year later, Legasov committed suicide,
32:50because he no longer wanted to...
32:52It is presumed that he no longer wanted to carry it.
33:00The Soviet television stages the management of the Chernobyl disaster as a heroic deed.
33:10Tens of thousands of liquidators,
33:13who sacrificed themselves in vain in the contaminated environment,
33:18were declared heroes of the fatherland,
33:21just like the soldiers in the war against the Nazis.
33:26This whole enterprise was disguised into a war rhetoric.
33:31They let you climb up on this exhaust chimney
33:36and then you hoist the Soviet flag up there.
33:45You defeated the enemy and restored peace.
33:56It was not until the fall of 1986
34:00that the open reactor was successfully buried under a sarcophagus.
34:05Under 7,000 tons of steel
34:08and hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of concrete.
34:14Steinbeck, meanwhile, implements improvements to the remaining RBMK reactors.
34:19Units 1 and 2 go back to their original positions.
34:23Units 1 and 2 go back online.
34:26Unit 3 is too contaminated.
34:29The reactor operators at Chernobyl
34:32are forced to accept the official accident declaration.
34:36Nuclear engineer Oleksii Breos receives a visit from the KGB secret service.
34:54I am obliged to tell you about the real causes of the Chernobyl disaster.
35:06A year later, in the summer of 1987,
35:10those allegedly responsible for the Chernobyl disaster,
35:14the director and the leading engineers, are put on trial.
35:19The trial takes place in the middle of the newly created forbidden zone,
35:24barely 20 kilometers from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
35:34It was a joke at that time that that was an open trial in the closed zone,
35:40which was done by design so to limit the access of media
35:45and control the information.
35:50The trial runs according to the script provided by headquarters in Moscow.
35:56The judges nip in the bud any discussion of the RBMK's fatal flaws.
36:20The main defendants are sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp each.
36:32Nuclear engineer Boris Stolyarchuk had feared prosecution for years.
36:37On the night of the disaster in Chernobyl, he was on duty on Unit 4.
36:50I opened the mailbox, and there was a letter with a large stamp.
36:58I sat down for a while and thought, well, the time has come.
37:05I opened this envelope, and there was a very short letter.
37:09You are found guilty of such and such a case.
37:13After that, completely different feelings appeared.
37:17Before that time, you know what pressure I was under and what thoughts I had.
37:24The fact that Boris Stolyarchuk did not end up in a Soviet prison camp
37:29is due to one man, Nikolai Steinberg.
37:38In 1987, Steinberg begins work on a new report on the causes of the disaster.
37:44He gains access to secret KGB files.
37:48After four years of work, he hands over his research to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.
37:56In 1992, the agency revises its 1986 report.
38:02New information raises new questions about the safety of the Chernobyl RBMK reactor.
38:09At the same time, the Soviet Union collapses.
38:13As the world power collapses, so does the truth about Chernobyl.
38:29The Motherland gave me an education, gave me a job.
38:34This is completely different. These are just different concepts.
38:38There is no disappointment.
38:41But today, all the facts, life, tell me that I do not regret that such a country ceased to exist.
39:00It was not until after Ukraine's independence in the 1990s
39:04that the men of the Chernobyl disaster were vindicated,
39:07thanks to Nikolai Steinberg's report.
39:10In Russia, they are still considered as the culprits who caused the catastrophe.
39:16RBMK reactors are still operating in Russia today.
39:21In 2020, the Russian state erected a monument in Moscow to the father of the RBMK,
39:28Shredmash Boss, Efim Slavsky.
39:38This lie was brought up. This is hypocrisy.
39:42This is a terrible thing. Terrible.
39:45And these are the brains of people for years.
39:50And many consequences today in our countries are the consequences of that system of lies, hypocrisy.
39:58This is a terrible psychological problem.
40:03Today, Nikolai Steinberg still believes in nuclear power,
40:08but not under the conditions of a system like in the Soviet Union.
40:14In December 2000, the last reactor in Chernobyl is shut down.
40:202,000 men and women still take care of the ruins of the nuclear power plant 24-7.
40:29Access to the exclusion zone is strictly limited.
40:34Within the zone, radiation levels vary greatly.
40:39The area is a unique part of the world.
40:43Researchers here are studying the long-term effects of radioactive exposure on flora and fauna.
40:58The sarcophagus of Unit 4 is now surrounded by a new protective steel shell.
41:04Beneath it, though, there are still 200 metric tons of radioactive material.
41:10In 100 years, even this shell will no longer be sufficient to protect the area from radiation.
41:17Once an enthusiastic student of nuclear engineering,
41:21Oleksii Breus has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years.
41:25The events of Chernobyl have never left him.
41:56Ukraine bears the brunt of the Chernobyl disaster.
42:00Since the disaster, tens of thousands have fallen ill due to the radioactive contamination.
42:07How many people actually die from the consequences is not known.
42:13Estimates of long-term casualties range from 4,000 to tens of thousands.
42:20Pripyat's chief architect, Maria Protsenko, loses her son and her husband.
42:34For years, both had worked as liquidators at Chernobyl.
42:49We used to say that our lives were divided into before and after the accident.
42:59There was a reassessment of values.
43:02That is, you began to understand and accept life from a completely different point of view.
43:08And today you can do it.
43:11Today you have good.
43:14Today you love.
43:16Today you are happy.
43:46Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
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44:56Chernobyl Exclusion Zone