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CU �鶹ӰԺ political scientist Sarah Wilson Sokhey says the underlying lesson of the nuclear catastrophe is that the risk has not gone away—and that such disasters don’t recognize national borders

Forty years ago this month, Soviet officials issued to the International Atomic Energy Agency—four months after the April 26, 1986, meltdown of Nuclear Reactor No. 4 in Pripyat, Ukraine, released radioactivity across large portions of Europe.

Beyond being the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe on record, one of the most defining aspects of the disaster was the Soviet government’s deliberate decision to withhold information about it immediately afterward, according to��Sarah Wilson Sokhey, an associate professor of��political science at the �鶹ӰԺ who has spent more than 20 years studying the politics of Russia and the former Soviet Union.

In retrospect, Sokhey says the decision was not surprising given how the Soviet government operated as an organization.��

Sarah Wilson Sokhey is a CU �鶹ӰԺ associate professor of��political science who has spent more than 20 years studying the politics of Russia and the former Soviet Union.

“It was a very hierarchical system with a very specific chain of command, and there were strong incentives not to report problems and accidents or to minimize their effects,” she explains.��

Sokhey notes that it’s not unusual for governments to withhold some information during a crisis to avoid creating unnecessary alarm, but she argues that was not an adequate explanation in the case of Chornobyl.

“If we had a more charitable interpretation of it, we might say they were trying to prevent a panic, but that’s not what was happening in this case because there were people at the heart of the accident who knew right at the beginning how bad this was and how bad it could get,” she says.��

Not only did Soviet authorities not notify Western countries near Ukraine, but they didn’t let their own citizens know about what happened in the immediate aftermath. That included nearby residents, who were not evacuated until 36 hours later—even though government officials who were directly involved understood the situation was severe, Sokhey says.

According to the World Nuclear Association, two Chornobyl workers died instantly from the physical blast of the explosion and building collapse on the night of the accident and 28 firefighters and emergency workers died within the first few weeks from acute radiation syndrome.��

Meanwhile, the Soviet republic of Belarus, located near the disaster zone, also experienced significant fallout. Sokhey says Belarussian scientists observed elevated radiation levels and that certain areas later saw increased rates of thyroid cancer, particularly in children.��

While the Soviet government initially remained mum about the accident, Sokhey says efforts to control information collided with the reality that the disaster could not be confined within Ukraine’s borders. As elevated radiation levels were detected in Sweden and other Western countries, it was no longer possible to keep things under wraps.��

Fallout from the nuclear disaster

In the weeks and months following the Soviet government’s first announcement of the nuclear disaster, more information came to light that showed just how serious the accident was, Sokhey says.

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Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant several months after the disaster. (Photo: Ukrainian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries)

“What we know now is that this was not just a small fire and it could not be quickly contained,” she says, contrasting that information with initial government reports. “It was a meltdown of the core of the nuclear reactor, so it was very serious.”

The consequences became obvious relatively quickly.��

“They not only evacuated Pripyat, but they didn’t allow people to return,” Sokhey says. “And it was very soon after obvious that they would need to engage in a long-term cleanup effort and have a sarcophagus (containment structure) that was built around the reactor.”

As a proactive measure, the government later resettled 116,000 people who lived within a 30 kilometer radius of the nuclear power plant.��

As a result of the disaster, Chornobyl spurred further global debate over the safety of nuclear energy, coming after Three Mile Island in the United States and before Fukushima in Japan, Sokhey notes.��

Although the scale of Chornobyl disaster was ultimately acknowledged by the Soviet government, debates over the causes continued for years.��

“In the Soviet system, there was a longer process that played out to pin the blame on who, exactly, was responsible within the system,” Sokhey says. “The acknowledgement of the scale of what happened, the accident itself and the conditions under which it happened came not very long after the accident because it had to.”

Initially, blame centered on the plant operators, who shut down the reactor’s safety systems to run tests. Later, questions were raised about the design and construction of the reactor.

A loss of trust

While Soviet officials eventually acknowledged the scale of the crisis and undertook a massive cleanup effort, many Soviet citizens felt deeply betrayed by the initial denials and the delay, Sokhey says.

She attended an event in Denver earlier this year hosted by the National Association of Ukrainian Women to remember the disaster, where some attendees shared their experiences. Sokhey says one woman who lived in Kyiv at the time recalled that large public events continued in the country’s capital days after the Chornobyl explosion, potentially exposing thousands of people to conditions that many now believe should have prompted caution and limited outdoor activity. The woman reported that some information regarding Chornobyl spread via word of mouth and rumors, but that governmental official remained mum at the time.

“For Ukrainians in particular, Chornobyl feeds into a long historical narrative of atrocities committed against the Ukrainian people by the Soviet and Russian system,” Sokhey says. “You’ll hear people in Ukraine talk about it in that vein. They’ll talk about the mass starvation that happened in the Stalinist period with Holodomor and they’ll talk about Chornobyl, because these are seen as a pattern of disregard, or even a pattern of hatred, toward Ukrainian life.”

In retrospect, it is fair to say that Chornobyl deeply damaged the Soviet Union’s reputation both at home and abroad, Sokhey says.

“I think it very much fed into the narrative that the Soviet system was corrupt, outdated and dishonest,” she says. “The public caught them in a very dramatic example of both incompetence and outdated technology and not being honest about the level of the disaster.”

At the same time, Sokhey cautions against the idea that Chornobyl was the catalyst for the Soviet Union’s collapse.��

The New Safe Confinement structure placed over reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 2016. (Photo: iStock)

At the time of the accident, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was pursuing sweeping reforms through “Perestroika” (restructuring) and “Glasnost” (transparency). Economic restructuring was producing disruptions and shortages, while increasing openness allowed citizens to express their frustrations more freely, Sokhey says. She adds that the Soviet war in Afghanistan was draining resources and costing lives, while several Soviet republics including Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states were becoming restive.

“All of those things were working together to undermine the Soviet system,” Sokhey says.

Lessons for today

For Sokhey, one of the most enduring lessons of Chornobyl is that environmental disasters can affect everyone, regardless of political boundaries. She argues that the world must pay close attention when authoritarian governments are responsible for reporting information about disasters because the incentives to conceal bad news can delay effective responses and increase harm.��

Sokhey says that lesson resonates today, as Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has renewed concerns about nuclear safety in the region. She points to ongoing worries surrounding both the Chornobyl site, which has been damaged in the fighting, as well as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, which is the largest nuclear plant in Europe and which was captured by Russia during the early days of the invasion. Sokhey notes that another nuclear-related crisis could happen at any time.

Forty years after the world learned that something had gone horribly wrong in a small town in northern Ukraine, Sokhey says the radiation may have diminished, but its lessons have not.��

“What happened at Chornobyl remains a risk today, and I think it teaches us the danger of what happens when authoritarian regimes are faced with crises—especially ones that affect people outside of their own country.”��

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