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- Russian troops that took over the Chornobyl nuclear power plant have transferred control back to Ukraine, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. - The IAEA said those Russian troops moved two convoys toward Kremlin-allied Belarus, while a third convoy left the nearby city of Slavutych, also toward Belarus. - The agency added that it “has not been able to confirm reports of Russian forces receiving high doses of radiation while being in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone.” Russian troops that took over the Chornobyl nuclear power plant last month have transferred control back to Ukraine, the International Atomic Energy...

Chornobyl remains Ukraine's Soviet-era nightmare, 20 years after explosion KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - The first advice we got after the Chornobyl explosion was to take a daily drop of iodine on a sugar cube. We heard it on the Voice of America broadcasts we listened to clandestinely. Local media, heavily under the Soviet thumb, told us there was nothing to worry about. A few days after the explosion, my friend Viktor Ivashchenko called me and told me I should flee Kyiv and never come back. Viktor's words carried a lot of weight - he was an engineer at the Institute...

The experiment started on Friday, April 25th, 1986 in the third reactor block of the Chernobyl atomic energy station, located about 100 kilometers north of Kiev (now Kyiv, Ukraine). It had been permitted to shut off the emergency cooling system in order to perform a series of tests. Nonetheless, the engineers and technicians servicing the 3rd reactor were surprised that it did not behave normally, but began to run out of control. The temperature rapidly rose in the reactor, and attempts to lower it were in vain. A fire started in the core. Early the next day there were two...

People in Ukraine, Belarus and other countries are today commemorating the 19th anniversary of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. In the early hours of 26 April 1986, a massive chemical explosion blew the 1,000-ton cover off the top of Chornobyl's Unit Four reactor, spewing radiation over Ukraine, Belarus, and northern Europe. Millions of people were affected by the disaster north of Kyiv. Prague, 26 April 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Ukraine and Belarus, the most affected countries, still wrangle with dire consequences of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster. Though the world's worst civil nuclear accident happened in Ukraine, its biggest victim was arguably neighboring...

1. CHORNOBYL: A DISASTER THAT HAS BECOME A MORAL CATEGORY "The nuclear lighting of Chornobyl has struck...." For Whom The Bell Tolls ESSAY: By Myroslava Barchuk Welcome to Ukraine magazine Kyiv, Ukraine, Issue Number One, 2004 In 1986 the Ukrainian poet Ivan Drach came up with a stunning metaphor — “the nuclear lightning of Chornobyl has struck right into the genotype of the Ukrainian nation.” Back in 1986, we in Ukraine, could not grasp the full extent of the disastrous consequences of the Chornobyl "nuclear lightning." The Chornobyl disaster was to become a moral category. Like a chain reaction, it...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The concrete shield thrown up to block radiation escaping the Chernobyl nuclear power station after it exploded in 1986 is collapsing and needs urgent reinforcement, Russia's atomic energy minister said Tuesday. Alexander Rumyantsev was speaking at a news conference almost exactly 17 years after one of Chernobyl's four reactors exploded and spewed clouds of radioactivity over much of Europe in the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster. "We can see a situation where the roof could fall in, or rather the supports that hold up the roof could fall down," he said, adding that the concrete itself was...