The Soviets ignored the dosimeters until the roof came off the reactor. The question is whether America still recognises the sound the alarms make before the concrete starts splitting open.

Chornobyl proved not only the dangers of nuclear power, but also how concealing the truth from the people contributed to the ...

Forty years ago, a reactor taught the world what arrogance and opacity can do to atoms under pressure. Forty years on, the ...

The Chernobyl disaster alerted Soviet leaders to the need for a better “safety culture” within its nuclear program—but the ...

As Ukraine marks the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, its president Volodmyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of committing “nuclear terrorism” by regularly flying attack drones ...

Looking at formerly top secret communication between the KGB and Stasi, it is clear that despite publicly insisting everything was under control, both intelligence agencies knew the explosion was ...

When something arouses strong emotions, it tends to be difficult to have a rational discussion about it. And the strongest emotion is fear. We should keep that in mind whenever nuclear energy is ...

As radiation spread across Europe in April 1986, so did the truth about a political system built on silence. Four decades on, RFI spoke to history and politics professor Oleg Kobtzeff about how the ...

Forty years on, Chernobyl is still not done with us. The reactor still glows. The zone still stands empty. And the lesson it carved into history remains as urgent as ever — that the most powerful ...

Editor-in-chief of the information website Desk Russie, journalist and historian Galia Ackerman is the author of several books on Russia and the former Soviet Union. She recently published Le KGB à ...

THE CONVERSATION via AP — On April 26, 1986, Soviet engineers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were conducting a safety test. Doomed by a fatal design flaw and pushed to the limit by human ...