Contact Us

'No way out': Life under the Russians at Chernobyl

It began as a normal shift at Chernobyl for Oleksiy Shelestiy but as night turned to day on February 24, distant artillery fire and the arrival of Russian troops changed everything.

  • 4
  • 16
The plant was the site in 1986 of the world's worst nuclear accident. Since then, it has been maintained by thousands of Ukrainian workers and closely monitored by international experts to contain its radioactive waste. For years, a carefully executed shift schedule and monitoring network kept a close eye on radiation levels at the facility. Then Russian forces poured across the border from Belarus and seized Chernobyl, holding its workers captive and cutting it off from the world.