This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
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Chernobyl: Russia’s month-long occupation of the nuclear power plant

By:   []

Date: 2022-06 

At 9am on 24 February, Vyacheslav Yakushev and 89 of his colleagues were supposed to end their shifts at the Chernobyl power plant and go home.

Most employees live in the nearby purpose-built town of Slavutych, and travel to work by train – crossing Ukraine’s border with Belarus twice in the process. The site of the most damaging nuclear disaster in history is just a few kilometres from a section of Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus, which sticks out into Ukraine like a pocket.

But Sasha Kovalenko, the engineer who was meant to take over Yakushev’s shift at 7am, had not arrived. In fact, Kovalenko was still waiting for his train: as it was revealed later, the line had been severed when a bridge was blown up earlier that morning.

Supervisor Valentyn Geiko announced that there would be no shift change. A full-scale war had begun, he explained, and the plant must remain on high alert. Soon after, columns of Russian armoured vehicles began to appear on the plant’s CCTV system.

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“There was a feeling that what was happening was unreal. ‘Guys, are you serious? Do you understand where you are going?’” Yakushev remembers thinking about the Russian soldiers.

Yakushev finally returned home to his wife and daughter 26 days later, on 20 March. He had spent more than 600 hours at the station.
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