It does now seem likely that some time in the last couple of days there has been perhaps the worst accident in the short history of the world’s nuclear power industry. Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes, UK news, Sky Documentaries 2022
Those who survived the disaster were silenced, and the film footage hidden. ibid. commentary
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station is in all respects the leader among nuclear power stations being built. First, it leads in the speed of launching new power-generating units. ibid. Soviet information film
Everyone believed our reactors simply could not explode. ibid. commentary
People enjoyed life there. We wanted for nothing. ibid.
We had to run over the unit, looking for the injured. The conditions were absolutely horrifying. There was fire, smoke, pieces of construction hanging down, hot vapour, extreme radiation. ibid.
36 hours had passed. For 36 hours, people had been inhaling contaminated air. After the announcement of the evacuation 2,200 buses came to Pripyat and Chernobyl. The people were told, ‘Don’t worry.’ ibid.
Right after the [helicopter] flights were started I was getting a metallic taste and a constant scratching in the throat. It was immediately noticeable. ibid.
The explosion at Chernobyl caused a toxic nuclear mess the likes of which the world had never seen before. An eruption of thick nuclear material had poured out over 1,000 square kilometres. ibid. Oleksiy Breus, Chernobyl engineer
We calculated the explosion was equivalent to 400 nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ibid.
Sooner or later each of our bodies showed signs. We all went through it – vomiting, coughing, extreme exhaustion. Some guys couldn’t get out of bed from fatigue by the second day. We called the local medical instructor. He gave them some pills, injections, something to drink. The level of radiation accumulation was strictly concealed. People worked till they fell from their feet … about 80% of the liquidators would die. ibid.
On April 25th 1986 Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev has been in power for only one year … Chernobyl is a symbol of the Soviet Union’s industrial and technological muscle. Soviet nuclear scientists consider it to be the cream of the nation’s nuclear plants. Seconds from Disaster: Meltdown in Chernobyl, National Geographic 2021
Chernobyl has four reactors all running at the same time. ibid.
A safety drill – but from the start, problems develop, and now something seems to be going very wrong. The young men who work the night shift struggle to prevent a major nuclear accident. ibid.
Chernobyl’s number four reactor explodes. The force of the explosion blows the reactor’s 2,000-ton steel roof sideways. 8 tons of highly reactive fuel blast into the night sky. ibid.
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster turned 1,000 square miles of Ukraine into a wasteland. The Chernobyl Disaster: Meltdown, Channel 5 2022
Two miles from Chernobyl, the city of Pripyat, once home to 50,00 people, lies in ruins. A 1,000-mile exclusion zone has restricted access to the site. ibid.
Chernobyl is decades in the making. It began when the emerging Soviet Union’s nuclear power programme threatened the world. A Soviet dream that became a nightmare. ibid.
Engineers will switch off all of the pumps that cool the reactor to test the backup system. ibid.
Xenon gas is poisoning the reactor … Even before the test starts they’re struggling to control the reactor. ibid.
A disaster officials tried to cover up. As a brave few battled to stop radiation spreading across the globe. The Chernobyl Disaster II: Firestorm
They are following orders to get water into the reactor’s system to prevent meltdown. But the electrics have failed so they are doing the job manually. ibid.
The core of the reactor is smouldering, releasing large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Helicopters battle to stop this deadly radiation escaping from the molten core. The Chernobyl Disaster III: Fallout
The sarcophagus is falling apart … 45 countries including the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom all donate towards a new safe confinement shelter. ibid.
[Viktor] Yushchenko was gravely ill. He was flown to a private clinic in Vienna where he was found to have been poisoned by a huge dose of dioxin. Putin, Russia and the West II: Democracy Threatens, BBC 2012
Ukraine Supreme Court, 3 December 2004: In the name of Ukraine on the 3rd of December 2004 the Supreme Court of Ukraine considers it necessary to remedy the violation of rights by holding a re-run of the Presidential elections. ibid.
Yushchenko won the re-run decisively. ibid.
Washington received Yushchenko like a hero. ibid.
Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption. Joe Biden
I ask you, people who care about the soul of Ukraine, those who want to preserve the heart, the spirit and the faith of our country for future generations, to please defend it. Yulia Tymoshenko
Eighty per cent of our gas transits through Ukraine, which was the motive behind our Ukrainian colleagues’ decision to start to blackmail us ... But we are ready to go to the Swedish court in the event of Ukraine’s unsanctioned use of gas. Alexander Medvedev
In 1964, the year Strangelove was made, ‘the missile gap’ was the false flag. In order to build more and bigger nuclear weapons and pursue an undeclared policy of domination, President John Kennedy approved the CIA’s propaganda that the Soviet Union was well ahead of the US in the production of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. This filled front pages as the ‘Russian threat’. In fact, the Americans were so far ahead in the production of ICBMs, the Russians never approached them. The cold war was based largely on this lie.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of its ‘Nato Enlargement Project’ taken over eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Caucuses, Nato’s military build-up is the most extensive since the second world war.
In February, the United States mounted one of its proxy ‘colour’ coups against the elected government of Ukraine; the shock troops were fascists. For the first time since 1945, a pro-Nazi, openly anti-Semitic party controls key areas of state power in a European capital. No Western European leader has condemned this revival of fascism on the border of Russia. Some 30 million Russians died in the invasion of their country by Hitler’s Nazis, who were supported by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the UPA, responsible for numerous Jewish and Polish massacres. The UPA was the military wing, inspiring today’s Svoboda party.
Since Washington’s putsch in Kiev – and Moscow’s inevitable response in Russian Crimea, to protect its Black Sea Fleet – the provocation and isolation of Russia have been inverted in the news to the ‘Russian threat’. This is fossilised propaganda. The US Air Force general who runs Nato forces in Europe – General Breedlove, no less – claimed more than two weeks ago to have pictures showing 40,000 Russian troops ‘massing’ on the border with Ukraine. So did Colin Powell claim to have pictures of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. What is certain is that Obama’s rapacious, reckless coup in Ukraine has ignited a civil war and Vladimir Putin is being lured into a trap. John Pilger, The Strangelove Effect, Or How We Are Hoodwinked Into Accepting a New World War
Above all, this is the war of propaganda. And I would think almost nothing one reads in the western press about the invasion of Ukraine is to be trusted. John Pilger, This is a War on Propaganda, Youtube 20.36, 2022
The US doesn’t give a damn about Ukraine. Ukraine is simply a pawn in this. ibid.
I’ve never seen a coverage so utterly consumed by a tsunami of jingoism, and of manipulative jingoism as this one. ibid.
For centuries Ukraine has existed between the axis of east and west. In 1991 Ukraine declares its independence from the Soviet Union. In 2004 pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych wins the presidential vote; the election was found to be rigged. As a result, the people took to the streets in a peaceful protest called the Orange Revolution … In 2010 Yanukovych returns. Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, 2015
Ukraine is part of Europe! … ‘to demand our politicians sign the agreement with the European Union.’ ibid. protest
‘The troops beat everyone with iron sticks.’ ibid. protester
‘From that came the march of the millions.’ ibid. priest
‘The whole country said this must stop.’ ibid. soldier
‘The police threw stun grenades.’ ibid. protester
‘The night of December 11th showed how important the spirit of unity is.’ ibid.
‘The catalyst was the laws passed on January 16th.’ ibid.
‘They [soldiers] completely destroyed the medical station.’ ibid.
17th July 2014: Just after midday Flight MH17 takes off from Amsterdam bound for Kuala Lumpur. On board, the 298 passengers and crew … Three hours later MH17 is blown out of the sky over the Russia/Ukraine border. There are no survivors … Suspicion immediately falls on Ukraine’s nearest neighbour – Russia. Secret Wars Uncovered s1e1: Coup in Crimea, Sky History 2020