Midnight in Chernobyl

by Adam Higginbotham

  Unit Three remained: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 125; Danilyuk, ed., “Chernobyl Tragedy,” Z arkhiviv, document no. 73: “Special report of the USSR KGB and UkSSR KGB 6th Department concerning the radioactive situation and the progress in works on the cleaning up operation after the accident at the Chernobyl NPS,” December 31, 1986.

  The commission even issued orders: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 117.

  In the meantime, Pravda reported: O. Ignatyev and M. Odinets, “House Warming at Zelenyy Mys,” Pravda, October 20, 1986, translated in “Aftermath of Chernobyl—Part II,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service; Marples, Social Impact of the Chernobyl Disaster, 225–26.

  “Tens upon tens of millions”: BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “Gromyko’s Presentation of Awards to ‘Heroes’ of Chernobyl,” summary of TASS news report on January 14, 1987 (translated January 16, 1987).

  The few awards: Grigori Medvedev, Truth About Chernobyl, 264.

  At one point: Natalia Yuvchenko, author interview, 2015.

  Instead of recognition: Yankovsky, author interview, 2017. The date of this notification is given as November 28, 1986, by Samodelova in “The private catastrophe of Chernobyl’s director.”

  He was permitted: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2016.

  Occasionally Brukhanov had: Brukhanov, interview by Maria Vasyl, Fakty i kommentarii, 2000.

  For a while: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2015.

  At first, Brukhanov refused: Brukhanov, interview by Maria Vasyl, Fakty i kommentarii, 2000.

  But his wife: Yuri Sorokin (Viktor Brukhanov’s attorney in court), author interview, Moscow, October 2016.

  That same month: Yankovsky, author interview, 2017.

  The director found a letter: The expert, once more, was Vladimir Volkov (see chapter 4), who this time wrote a letter of protest to Gorbachev himself.

  They sent a total of forty-eight: Sorokin, author interview, 2016. The investigator Yankovsky recalls that there were 57 volumes of material, including KGB surveillance recordings of telephone conversations and data from the plant (Yankovsky, author interview, 2017).

  Four other senior members of the plant staff: The sixth man on trial, Yuri Laushkin, the inspector of the state nuclear industry regulator (Gosatomenergonadzor) based at the plant, was the only one not accused of a crime under Article 220 regarding an “explosion-prone facility.” He was tried under Article 167, for negligence. Schmid, Producing Power, 4–5 and 206n29 and 206n30; and A. Rekunkov, Prosecutor General of the USSR, “On the completion of the criminal investigation into the accident at Chernobyl NPP” [О завершении расследования по уголовному делу об аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], memo to the Central Committee of the CPSU, in RGANI, opis 53, reel 1.1007, file 56.

  An inventive legal gambit: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 125; Schmid, Producing Power, 4. The legal category of “explosion-prone” facilities was normally reserved for plants and storage spaces housing large volumes of hot oil, fertilizer, acid, and other chemicals. See A. G. Smirnov and L. B. Godgelf, The classification of explosive areas in national and international standards and regulations [Классификация взрывоопасных зон в национальных и международных стандартах, правилах] (Moscow: Tiazhpromelectroproyekt, 1992), online at http://aquagroup.ru/normdocs/1232.

  To bolster the case: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 249; Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 126.

  Too mentally unstable: A. Smagin, testimony in Grigori Medvedev, Truth About Chernobyl, 256–57.

  While the wretched technician: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 246. For details of the orginal trial date, see “On the criminal trial related to the accident at Chernobyl NPP” [О судебном разбирательстве уголовного дела, связанного с аварией на Чернобыльской АЭС], February 27, 1987, memo to the Central Committee of the CPSU, RGANI, opis 53, reel 1.1007, file 58. A follow-up memo from two months later suggests an alternative reason for the postponement was to avoid the trial coinciding with the first anniversary of the disaster: “On the criminal trial related to the accident at Chernobyl NPP” [О судебном разбирательстве уголовного дела, связанного с аварией на Чернобыльской АЭС], April 10, 1987, memo to the Central Committee of the CPSU, RGANI, opis 4, reel 1.989, file 22.

  Maria Protsenko returned: Protsenko, author interview, 2015.

  On April 18: Protsenko, author interview, 2016. The precise language of the standard diagnosis is reported in Chernousenko, Insight from the Inside, 163.

  Back in Pripyat: L. Kaybysheva, “News panorama” from Chernobyl, Izvestia, March 13, 1987, translated by BBC Summary of World Broadcasts on March 26, 1987; Alexander Sich, “Truth Was an Early Casualty,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 52, no. 3 (1996): 41.

  Now sole masters: Felicity Barringer, “A Reporter’s Notebook: A Haunted Chernobyl,” New York Times, June 24, 1987.

  Tens of thousands of liquidators: During the course of 1987, approximately 120,000 military personnel were rotated through the Exclusion Zone as part of the liquidation effort. Yuriy Skaletsky and Oleg Nasvit (National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine), “Military liquidators in liquidation of the consequences of Chornobyl NPP accident: myths and realities,” in T. Imanaka, ed., Multi-side Approach to the Realities of the Chernobyl NPP Accident (Kyoto University Press, 2008), 92.

  Dust from highly contaminated areas: Danilyuk, ed., “Chernobyl Tragedy,” Z arkhiviv, document no. 82: “Special report of the UkSSR KGBM on Kiev and Kiev region to the UkSSR KGB 6th Department concerning the radioactive situation and the progress in works on the cleaning up operation after the accident at the Chernobyl NPS,” May 19, 1987.

  The Kombinat leaders: V. Gubarev and M. Odinets, “Chernobyl: Two years on, the echo of the ‘zone,’ ” and commentary by V. A. Masol (chairman of Ukraine’s Council of Ministers) in Pravda, April 24, 1988, translated by the BBC Summary of World Broadcasts on April 29, 1988.

  In the meantime, looting: Ivan Gladush (interior minister of Ukraine at time of accident), interview by Dmitry Kiyansky, “Let our museum be the only and the last” [Пусть наш музей будет единственным и последним], Zerkalo nedeli Ukraina, April 28, 2000, https://zn.ua/society/pust_nash_muzey_budet_edinstvennym_i_poslednim.html.

  Logachev watched in amazement: Alexander Logachev, interview by Taras Shumeyko, 2017.

  The cars and motorcycles left behind: Esaulov, City That Doesn’t Exist, 65; Maria Protsenko, author interview, 2016.

  As the first anniversary of the disaster approached: L. Kravchenko, list of proposed print, TV, and radio stories, in “Plan of essential propaganda measures to commemorate the first anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, approved by the Central Committee” [План основных пропагандистских мероприятий в связи с годовщиной аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], April 10, 1987, in RGANI, opis 53, reel 1.1007, file 27.

  The official Soviet report: “Annex 7: Medical–Biological Problems,” in “USSR State Committee Report on Chernobyl,” Vienna, August 1986.

  Western specialists: David R. Marples, “Phobia or not, people are ill at Chernobyl,” Globe and Mail (Canada), September 15, 1987; Felicity Barringer, “Fear of Chernobyl Radiation Lingers for the People of Kiev,” New York Times, May 23, 1988.

  Robert Gale told the press: Stuart Diamond, “Chernobyl’s Toll in Future at Issue,” New York Times, August 29, 1986.

  Here, more than a year after the accident: Valeri Slutsky, author interview, 2006; Felicity Barringer, “Pripyat Journal: Crows and Sensors Watch Over Dead City,” New York Times, June 22, 1987; Sue Fox, “Young Guardian: Memories of Chernobyl—Some of the things Dr. Robert Gale remembers from the aftermath of the world’s worst
nuclear disaster,” The Guardian, May 18, 1988; Celestine Bohlen, “Chernobyl’s Slow Recovery; Plant Open, but Pripyat Still a Ghost Town,” Washington Post, June 21, 1987; Thom Shanker, “As Reactors Hum, ‘Life Goes On’ at Mammoth Tomb,” Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1987.

  And one morning would be awoken: Viktor Haynes and Marco Bojcun, The Chernobyl Disaster (London: Hogarth, 1988), 98. When that day might come, no one was any longer prepared to say. “I can’t predict the future,” a spokesman for Kombinat explained. “Maybe in ten or fifteen years.”

  18. THE TRIAL

  The trial of Viktor Brukhanov: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 244–50.

  A handful of representatives: Martin Walker, “Three Go on Trial After World’s Worst Atomic Disaster,” Guardian, July 7, 1987, cited by Schmid, Producing Power, 205, fn.13

  “I think I’m not guilty”: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 253.

  Wearing a suit jacket: For photos from the trial, see “Chernobyl trial” [Чернобыльский суд], Chernobyl and Pripyat electronic archive, December 18, 2010, http://pripyat-city.ru/main/36-chernobylskiy-sud.html.

  He gave an account: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 254–55.

  And yet he told the court: Brukhanov, court testimony in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 130–33.

  “The answer to this question”: Ibid., 137.

  “Who do you think is guilty?”: Ibid., 173.

  Chief engineer Nikolai Fomin: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 252.

  His face pale and glistening: See video footage of court proceedings at “The Chernobyl Trial” [Чернобыльский суд], online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrH2lmP5Wao (accessed May 2018).

  He explained how he had been incapacitated: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 259; Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 144.

  Unaware of the scale: Fomin, court testimony in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 151.

  “Dyatlov and Akimov”: Fomin, court testimony in ibid., 143.

  Of all the defendants: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 252; Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 162.

  He said responsibility: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 259.

  Despite being contradicted: Dyatlov, court testimony in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 155 and 164. He would later admit to giving the mission to the trainees, in his memoir How It Was, 49.

  Although none of the accused: Read, Ablaze, 231.

  Reporters were told: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 270.

  Yet many of the expert witnesses: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 205–6; Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 261.

  The court stifled: Read, Ablaze, 231–32.

  On July 23: Ibid., 231; Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 262–63.

  “There is no reason to believe”: Ibid.

  They both recognized that: Sorokin, author interview, 2016.

  Fomin accepted his guilt: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 264–68.

  Sarcophagus: A Tragedy: William J. Eaton, “Candor Stressed in Stage Account; Soviet Drama Spotlights Chernobyl Incompetence,” Los Angeles Times, September 17, 1986; Martin Walker, “Moscow Play Pans Nuclear Farce: Piece on Chernobyl Accident to Tour Soviet Cities,” Guardian, September 18, 1986.

  “Of course, they should be punished”: Thom Shanker, “Life Resumes at Chernobyl as Trials Begin,” Chicago Tribune, June 16, 1987.

  During an adjournment: Read, Ablaze, 233.

  Judge Brize delivered his verdict: Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 271.

  Valentina Brukhanov fainted: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2016; Samodelova, “The private catastrophe of Chernobyl’s director.”

  Driven from the Palace: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2015; Voznyak and Troitsky, Chernobyl, 271. “Stolypin cars” was a common name for the railroad cattle wagons used to transport convicts, and pickled herring was given to prisoners to discourage hunger.

  When he finally arrived: Samodelova, “Private catastrophe of Chernobyl’s director”; Viktor Brukhanov, interview, “The Incomprehensible Atom” [Непонятый атом], Profil, April 24, 2006, www.profile.ru/obshchestvo/item/50192-items_18814; Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2016.

  As the end of 1987 approached: Marples, Social Impact of the Chernobyl Disaster, 226–27 and 235; Baranovska, ed., Chernobyl Tragedy, document no. 372: “Information from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine to the Central Committee of the CPSU on the status of construction of the city of Slavutych,” August 5, 1987; and document no. 373: “The letter of V. Scherbitsky to the USSR Council of Ministers about construction shortfalls in the city of Slavutych,” September 21, 1987. The city would eventually welcome its first five hundred residents in April 1988 (Reuters, “New Town Opens to Workers from Chernobyl Power Plant,” New York Times, April 19, 1988).

  A radiation survey of Slavutych: Baranovska, ed., Chernobyl Tragedy, document no. 374: “Report of the Joint Commission of USSR ministries and agencies on the radioactive situation in the city of Slavutych,” September 21, 1987.

  The last of the three surviving reactors: BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “Chernobyl Nuclear Station Third Set Restart,” summary of Soviet television programming, December 4, 1987 (translated December 11, 1987).

  Unit Three, although now separated: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 119–20. Even in 1990, there were still fuel pills scattered on the roof of Unit Three (Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 13). Attempts to rectify the problem in the autumn of 1987 are detailed in Borovoi and Velikhov, The Chernobyl Experience, Part 1, 114–16.

  A tacit admission: Schmidt, Producing Power, 153 and 271n86.

  The authorities revised: Ibid., 152. In an interview with a West German environmental magazine at the end of the year, Legasov said that the safety modifications would cost the equivalent of between $3 million and $5 million at each station. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “Better safeguards for nuclear stations,” West German Press Agency, November 22, 1987 (translated on December 4, 1987).

  Little had really changed: The report noted that 320 equipment failures occurred at Soviet nuclear power plants since the accident at Chernobyl, and that 160 of them led to emergency reactor shutdowns: Memorandum to the CPSU Central Committee by I. Yastrebov (head of the Department of Heavy Industry and Power Engineering) and O. Belyakov (head of the Department of Defense Industry), “On the work of the USSR Ministry of Atomic Energy and the Ministry of Medium Machine Building on securing operational safety of nuclear power plants as a result of implementing the CPSU Central Committee resolution of July 14, 1986” [О работе Министерства атомной энергетики СССР и Министерства среднего машиностроения СССР по обеспечению безопасности эксплуатации атомных электростанций в свете постановления ЦК КПСС от 14 июля 1986 года о результатах расследования причин аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], May 29, 1987, in RGANI, opis 53, reel 1.1007, file 61.

  Demoralized by the way: Danilyuk, ed., Z arkhiviv, document no. 82: “Special report of the UkSSR KGBM,” May 19, 1987.

  In public, Valery Legasov: Legasov, writing in Pravda in June 1986, cited in Mould, Chernobyl Record, 299n12.

  But privately: Legasov Tapes, cassette Three, 11–14.

  He made repeated visits: Margarita Legasova, “Defenceless Victor,” in Mould, Chernobyl Record, 304.

  He proposed that: Read, Ablaze, 254.

  Even his role at Chernobyl: Vladimir S. Gubarev, “On the Death of V. Legasov,” excerpts from The Agony of Sredmash [Агония Средмаша] (Moscow: Adademkniga, 2006), reproduced in Margarita Legasova, Academician Valery A. Legasov, 343.

  A perestroika of its own: Ibid., 340.

  Legasov, citing his poor health: Read, Ablaze, 256.

  He began reading the Bible: Legasova, “Defenceless Victor,” in Mould, Chernobyl Record, 305.


  Using a new Japanese Dictaphone: Margarita Legasova, Academician Valery A. Legasov, 382; Read, Ablaze, 257.

  Afterward, Gubarev attempted: Read, Ablaze, 257–58; Gubarev, “On the Death of V. Legasov,” 346.

  In a separate interview with Yunost: Shcherbak, “Report on First Anniversary of Chernobyl,” trans. JPRS, pt. 2, 20–21.

  By the beginning of 1988: Read, Ablaze, 259–60.

  That afternoon, Legasov’s daughter: Inga Legasov, author interview, 2017.

  At lunchtime: Ibid.; the time of the discovery is given in The Mystery of Academician Legasov’s Death.

  When a colleague: Borovoi, author interview, 2015.

  “Why did he abandon me?”: Read, Ablaze, 261.

  The opening address: E. I. Chazov, USSR Minister of Health, “Opening speech,” in the proceedings of the event published by the IAEA: “Medical Aspects of the Chernobyl Accident: Proceedings of An All-Union Conference Organized by the USSR Ministry of Health and the All-Union Scientific Centre of Radiation Medicine, USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, and Held in Kiev, 11–13 May 1988,” report no. IAEA-TECDOC-516, 1989, 9–10. The number of adults and children living in affected areas is given in G. M. Avetisov et al., “Protective Measures to Reduce Population Exposure Doses and Effectiveness of These Measures,” 151.

  In Kiev, even two years: Felicity Barringer, “Fear of Chernobyl Radiation Lingers for the People of Kiev,” New York Times, May 23, 1988.

  But the mandarins: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 41.

  “They inflict great damages”: Leonid Ilyn, quoted in Barringer, “Fear of Chernobyl Radiation Lingers for the People of Kiev.”

  And the general secretary’s own realization: Taubman, Gorbachev, 235–43.

  What began with more open reporting: Kotkin, Armageddon Averted, 68.

  An edited extract: “ ‘My Duty Is to Tell about This”: From Academician V. Legasov’s Notes” [«Мой долг рассказать об этом» Из записок академика В. Легасова], Pravda, May 20, 1988, translated in Mould, Chernobyl Record, 300.