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The Military

Russians Leaving Chernobyl After Radiation Exposure (apnews.com) 143

Posted by BeauHD from the karma-for-invading-a-sovereign-nation dept.
According to the Associated Press, Russian troops have left the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after soldiers received "significant doses" of radiation from digging trenches around the closed plant. On February 24, Russians seized control of Chernobyl shortly after declaring their invasion of Ukraine. From the report: Russian forces seized the Chernobyl site in the opening stages of the Feb. 24 invasion, raising fears that they would cause damage or disruption that could spread radiation. The workforce at the site oversees the safe storage of spent fuel rods and the concrete-entombed ruins of the reactor that exploded in 1986. Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert with the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said it "seems unlikely" a large number of troops would develop severe radiation illness, but it was impossible to know for sure without more details. He said contaminated material was probably buried or covered with new topsoil during the cleanup of Chernobyl, and some soldiers may have been exposed to a "hot spot" of radiation while digging. Others may have assumed they were at risk too, he said.
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Russians Leaving Chernobyl After Radiation Exposure More

Russians Leaving Chernobyl After Radiation Exposure

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  • While I’d like to lampoon Russia (Score:3)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Thursday March 31, 2022 @08:40PM (#62406884)
    for this, I seem to remember my own country assigning fairly large numbers of,soldiers to suck down large volumes of burn pit fumes. Well documented health effects.

    War is bad for your health.
    • All militaries are run by people with scant respect for human life. Also, the US had no business being in Iraq in 2003 -- looking at Ukraine, how we know how our military adventurism looked to the rest of the world 15-20 years ago.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ghoul ( 157158 )
        Russians are looking for Bioweapon labs - WMDs. At this point I think the Russians are just trolling the US for Iraq(WMD) and Kosovo(protecting minorities).

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Not excusing the invasion of Iraq but to be fair Saddam was a ruthless dictator who had gassed thousands of kurds with chemical weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        So yes both wars are wrong but many pragmatic people were less bothered about an attempt to remove Saddam, a vicious dictator. The US attack on Afghanistan was not so excusable.

        • Re:While I’d like to lampoon Russia (Score:4, Insightful)

          by N1AK ( 864906 ) on Friday April 01, 2022 @06:22AM (#62407610) Homepage
          Clearly people will have different opinions, however my view is that the Iraq war was considerably less justifiable. You can't justify regime change on the basis of something a leader did over 20 years ago, and by comparison to the Taliban Saddam and his regime were behaving relatively moderately. The Taliban by comparison were openly allowing Al Qaeda to operate from their country and shielding them, and had killed thousands of citizens in the few years before the US invasion for opposing them or for being from the wrong ethnic or religious group. I don't agree with either invasion but the case for action in Afghanistan was at least compelling; in Iraq it never seemed to be anything more than finishing what Bush Snr started.

        • Not excusing the invasion of Iraq but to be fair Saddam was a ruthless dictator who had gassed thousands of kurds with chemical weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          So yes both wars are wrong but many pragmatic people were less bothered about an attempt to remove Saddam, a vicious dictator. The US attack on Afghanistan was not so excusable.

          So Saddam Hussein was bad but the Taliban, who stone people to death without trial, kill homosexuals, force girls into marriages when they are children, and more generally enslave their entire female population, are ok with you. Got it.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

            What a stupid bullshit line, by extension you are saying the US should invade most middle east countries including Saudi Arabia and Iran.

            • Strictly speaking the parent is just arguing that the Taliban was worse than Saddam Hussein, not that this is enough justification for an invasion.

        • Germany once invaded Ukraine (in WW2, it was technically part of Soviet Russia at that time), but now they are opposed to Russia invading Ukraine!?!

          How can they possibly have changed their minds! It's almost like there are different leaders in charge of the country with a different point of view and different beliefs about right and wrong!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

            Indeed and are we not allowed to learn that our leaders are a bunch of liars, go to war under false pretences and then go on to make a complete mess of things to boot. I remember it being said that the Americans could have had many more Iraqis on their side if they didn't imprison and torture so many of them, I'll bet many have Forgotten that scandal already. Also, White phosphorus and depleted uranium, the use of which I consider to be war crimes.

            • You forget there were two Iraqi wars. The first one was very justifiable and very straightforward. Saddam wanted his neighbors oil, he invaded, we knocked him back to his own borders, we went home. As clean as war can get. The second Iraq war was an absolutely awful mess. That was the one where we invented a WMD accusation to justify it, and then invented “Enhanced interrogation” but loudly explained that it totally wasnt torture, and Bush jr. went around telling everyone that they were either f

          • Yeah, they had decades to ponder how a failed Austrian painter with a bad combover didn't make the best political descisions.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      One can argue for ages about what the Russians knew or what any specific individual was exposed to. The fog of war means we'll never be able to sort that out. What we can know for sure is that the Russian government simply doesn't care what happens to the military or the civilian population. Power and glory above all things. Which, I believe, is the theorised end-state for most political systems.

      I don't see this as ok, but to fully understand the problem, we must first look at the problem in full and not at

    • The soldiers should sent should rotate out soon. Similar approach was done to cover it. A rotating plan was probably skuttled due to resistance elsewhere. Other priorities. They can return knowing what taking and Holding entails. Might be propaganda but it is good warning to the soldiers, careful tearing the place up. Invisible danger lingers.

    • During war, expect those who are supposedly on your side but above you to play dirty tricks to get you to do what they want.

        I'm sure those soldiers did have geiger counters except unknown to the soldiers they were rigged to give false "safe" readings. I would be surprised if this wasn't the case. Wouldn't be the first or worst dirty trick a goverment pulled on it's soldiers.

  • Radiation monitors still offline (Score:5, Informative)

    by zeeky boogy doog ( 8381659 ) on Thursday March 31, 2022 @08:58PM (#62406916)
    https://www.saveecobot.com/en/... [saveecobot.com]

    Monitors throughout the exclusion zone have been unresponsive since early march for the most part. Before they went offline, however, they were reporting large jumps in the radiation rates measured (from 1uSv/hr or less to as much as 50uS/hr). The large cluster of circles in the map is the Chernobyl NPP site, southeast of Pripyat. The red forest is a few km straight west of the plant.

    I can't imagine anyone being insane enough to deliberate dig a trench in the Red Forest. It's not just contaminated with cesium-137 (though it's got the highest levels of it), this was where nearly all the graphite and oxidized fuel macro-particles landed - both of which were and still are blazingly radioactive. And if you dig a trench, you're going down through the layer that was the surface in 1986 when they all landed.

    All this because Putin is a tiny, weak little psychopath with delusions of grandeur.

    • 50 micro Sv per hours ?? (Score:4, Informative)

      by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Friday April 01, 2022 @03:04AM (#62407374)
      That's more than 430 mSv per year. That's a lot. That's 1.2 mSv per day. Not even counting the contaminated dust/dirt they dug some will be put in the air, if some got in their lung/trachea all that dust emitted radiation will be in intern organs.... I hope for them they had mask....

      • all that dust emitted radiation will be in intern organs.

        Man, I've heard about on-the-job training being brutal in some places but this is over-the-top.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Orlando ( 12257 )

      I can't imagine anyone being insane enough to deliberate dig a trench in the Red Forest.

      The soldiers are following orders, presumably given by people who don't know or care about these risks. They literally don't have any choice.

    • I can't imagine anyone being insane enough to deliberate dig a trench in the Red Forest.

      Insane? No.
      Ignorant? Absolutely.
      Sociopathic? (in that they order other people to do it instead) Definitely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Based on experience in Fukushima, it seems like it doesn't take much to release the stored caesium. They have been trying to decontaminate the area around the Diaiichi plant for more than a decade, but despite removing vast quantities of soil and foliage, relatively small disturbances end up releasing dangerous amounts of radioactive material.

      We are talking about things like tractors in fields or using heavy machinery to remove debris.

      So I'm not really surprised that sending in a load of tanks and other arm

      • I'm glad the Japanese government protects its population by creating an exclusion zone around the Fukushima powerplant... Oh wait

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Parts of the area that was evacuated have been declared safe for short stays, mostly to allow people to recover personal possessions, search for missing pets and the like. Only adults are allowed, no children, and for a maximum of 24 hours.

          Areas further out have been through multiple decontamination cycles, but hot spots are still being found. Many of them are no longer viable communities as too many people have moved away. Farmers and fishermen are struggling, and the decision to release contaminated water

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zmooc ( 33175 )

      No need to dig a trench; just driving a tank through there would be more than enough to make a nice radioactive dust cloud...

  • You'd think the Chernobyl exclusion zone would've been of zero military value and Russian troops would've given it wide berth. It's like watching someone play that old Command and Conquer game who hasn't got the slightest clue what they're doing.

    Okay soldiers, surround the enemy's tesla coils!
    (zap!, zap!, zap!)
    Damn, that's gotta hurt.

    • You're not thinking the way moskaÅ filth think. They don't value the lives of their troops as much as even the US military does. The Chernobyl zone is a large unpopulated (undefended) staging area next to Belarus through which to enter Ukraine, plus they know that Ukrainian troops won't exactly be thrilled to bomb or use artillery there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nagora ( 177841 )

      You'd think the Chernobyl exclusion zone would've been of zero military value

      A position the enemy dare not shell is of very high military value.

    • Going through Chernobyl is the fastest way from Belarus to Kyiv. https://www.google.com/maps/di... [google.com]

  • Mark Nelson [twitter.com] has made it his mission to provide accurate information to balance the mainstream media stoking baseless hysteria about nuclear in Ukraine. Also very interesting and informative are his various interviews on the Decouple [youtube.com] and Power Hungry [youtube.com] Podcasts.

  • Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

    It's almost like Russia forgot everything they learned in the last 40 years, including "don't get into a protracted land war in Asia" and "you cracked open a reactor that spewed radioactive crap over a couple hundred square miles and declared an 'exclusion zone' due to the hazard".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )
      The Russians watched too many Hollywood movies where the secret weapons lab is always hidden in the Chernobyl Exclusion zone. They went in there looking for the Ukrainian secret labs.

    • It's almost like Russia forgot everything they learned in the last 40 years, including "don't get into a protracted land war in Asia"

      Is there any way we can get Putin to ingest some iocaine?

    • I get the impression that intelligent consideration of the consequences of your actions is not a notable quality of the Russian army. it puzzled me why Russia should consider Chernobyl to be worth capturing anyway. But then I don't think like a stupid thug.

  • "Chaotic Russian army pulls out of Chernobyl" is worse for morale than "Russian army makes strategic withdrawal due to radiation".

  • It was fully known what would happen when the Russian troops 'dug in' in that area, but Putin didn't care.

      The world can't afford ogliarchs, especially ones who have the authority to kill whomever he pleases.

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