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Experts return to devastated Chornobyl area
Experts were able to return to Chornobyl* for the first time since the Russian military seized the defunct, and highly radioactive, Chornobyl site. According to the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management (DAZV) they traversed extremely difficult conditions — including destroyed bridges and roadways — and have taken photographs of the first part…
Read MoreChornobyl radiation makes Russian soldiers sick?
Russian troops are suffering from “acute radiation sickness”, according to the Daily Beast, after digging trenches in the Chornobyl area. As they were disturbing the highly-contaminated soil in the Red Forest of the Exclusion Zone — an area where not even highly-specialized Chornobyl personnel venture — the soldiers began falling ill and were transported to…
Read MoreThe IAEA in Ukraine
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says it has “drawn up concrete and detailed plans for safety and security assistance to Ukraine’s nuclear sites”. The Director General of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi (pictured), is in Ukraine “for talks with senior government officials on the IAEA’s planned delivery of urgent technical assistance to ensure the…
Read MoreHow Three Mile Island birthed eco-feminism
Nuclear disaster motivated and mobilized women’s movement One of the perhaps lesser-known outcomes of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, marking it 43rd commemoration today, is that it inspired the popularization of what is now known as “eco-feminism.” Writes Grace Rivers, a sophomore at Georgetown University, in The Hoya: “Emerging in the 1970s and 80s with…
Read MoreChornobyl satellite town under siege
The State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone management is reporting that the Chornobyl nuclear power plant satellite city of Slavutych is under attack. “Right now the enemy is trying to take the city of Slavutych by storm. Blockbuster shelling is underway,” says the agency’s Facebook page. Checkpoints are under heavy artillery fire. The State…
Read MoreChornobyl laboratory attacked?
A laboratory on the Chornobyl nuclear site that researches radioactive waste management has been “robbed and destroyed” by the occupying Russian military forces, according to the State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management. (Державне агентство України з управління зоною відчуження) The lab was created in 2015 in collaboration with the European Union and at…
Read MoreRepublicans offer Russian uranium ban
Pivot to increase mining on domestic and Indigenous land In response to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s February 24th invasion of sovereign Ukraine, the Biden administration quickly martialed global economic sanctions against Russian aggression by targeting its oil, coal and liquified gas imports. But at the behest of the US nuclear industry lobby, the Nuclear Energy…
Read MoreThe Chernobyl tinder box: War increases fire risks
Forest fires have again erupted around the defunct and radioactively-contaminated Chernobyl nuclear power facility. Fires reloft and redistribute radionuclides trapped in soil and the forest litter, which is taking much longer to decay than it should, providing further fuel for fires. When one reactor core of the 4-reactor Chernobyl complex melted down and exploded in…
Read MoreChornobyl shift change, but some don’t leave
Some Chornobyl workers at the nuclear plant now occupied by Russian forces have finally been allowed to go off shift, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, but other staff apparently refused to leave. After working for almost one month straight, since the February 24 occupation by Russian military began, “a partial rotation of operational…
Read MoreCruise missiles hit Rivne
Russia’s defense ministry has said it hit a Ukrainian military installation in the northwestern city of Rivne with cruise missiles on Monday, raising fears for the safety and security of Rivne’s four-reactor nuclear power plant, the second largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine and the biggest power station of any kind in western Ukraine. As…
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