the world contained breath during the long month in which the Russian troops occupied the nuclear power station from Chernobyl. From night to day, the most polluted place on the planet by radioactive emissions had become a military targetsnatched by a foreign power to the country that had been managing the dangerous facilities for more than two decades, with all that this implies for the safety of the place and of its 2,600 workers. And although everything seems to indicate that the russian invaders they behaved prudently, without wishing to worsen the situation, although it is true that the extraordinary circumstances, with employees working piece rate overtime and obliged to permanently consult their movements with military commanders who deeply distrusted them, they were able to provoke some fatal mistake or carelessness.
Serhii Maklukhead of one of the working groups that take turns at Chernobyl, took over on March 20 the exhausted group that had been working at the plant since the day of the invasion, led by Valentin Geikothe man who negotiated with the occupiers the terms of the operation and who, according to The Economist magazineincluded granting full access to the administrative buildings, but not to the facilities that served the reactors that are no longer in operation. Makluk now tells EL PERIÓDICO, through of videoconference, the circumstances of the occupation and their bickering with the Russian military commanderswhich in some cases included moments of great tension.
This person in charge begins his story by recalling the visual impact received as soon as they entered the Exclusion Zone around the plant. “There were checkpoints everywhere and, at the entrance, Russian soldiers searched all of us. our belongings“, he explains. Despite the intimidation of the situation, nobody entered where he did not have to enter and the agreement that his colleague Geiko had reached with the Russian commanders was respected. That is true. “There were soldiers on each floor. And everything had to go through them, any movement had to be reported and approved by them. If we wanted to go to another building or to a remote area, we had to notify them and, sometimes, they even put us in a convoy,” he says.
minimize contact
The attitude of the military It was at all timesneutral Y respectful“. “They tried not to interfere in our work and we we minimize contact with them“, Values the person in charge. “It was clear that they were aware of the danger and had no intention of make the situation worse; moreover, among them there were not only military personnel, they had also sent officials of ROSATOM (Russian Atomic Energy Agency) to coordinate their actions with us. They really knew how dangerous it was,” he continues.
The breaking of work shifts constituted, according to Makluk, the main challenge for Chernobyl safety. Work at the plant is organized around two shifts, one of seven hours and five days a week, and another of 12 hours and with the Russian occupation, all these carefully planned schedules went to waste: “we worked tirelessly and we slept when we could, for a few hours,” he recalls. And although the plant’s staff is highly qualified, under such pressure it is clear that “the level of attention is lowered” and “the chances of making a mistake are increased,” he admits. For this reason, given the turn that events had taken, the plant’s commanders limited the tasks to be carried out by the “provision of services” and the “maintenance“, leaving aside the most committed activities, highlights Makluk.
Under threat
The only time the Chernobyl workers felt Under threat It happened the day the Russian military they withdrew. They realized that the occupants were preparing to transfer in a convoy to an unknown location, probably to Russia the 170 members of the National Guard Ukrainian women who guarded the facility at the time of the invasion and who had been prisoners from day one. “They were put in the vehicles in groups of ten and with their hands tied behind their backs,” he explains.
Related news
“My colleague, the second head of the group, Volodya Falshovikmade an announcement over the loudspeaker denouncing that they were transporting our soldiers to an unknown location; two generals came, confiscated all our mobile devices and locked us up; for more than three hours we could not go anywhere, “he recalls. The protest was useless. The Ukrainian soldiers were finally transferred to Russian territory, where they hope to be exchanged as prisoners of war by Russian soldiers in the custody of the kyiv Army.
Much has been speculated about the possibility that the Russians, by dig trenches and remove earth inside the Exclusion Zone, they could have increased the radioactivity levels in the atmosphere. Makluk tries to reassure the population. “I want to make it clear: the Russian soldiers did not dig in the Red Forest, the most dangerous place, they dug the trenches in a cleaner place, near Pripyat (where the Chernobyl workers lived until the 1986 catastrophe). It is an area polluted where you cannot live, but I rule out that because of it, someone will have radiation symptoms“, he concludes bluntly.