“37 years ago, the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster left a giant scar on the whole world. A radiation leak has turned a once welcoming and developed area into an exclusion zone. Today, the 30-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl NPP remains a dangerous place with a high concentration of radiation”, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said during a flower-laying ceremony at the “Chernobyl Warriors” monument and “Chernobyl Heroes” memorial mound.

He added that last year, the russian occupiers not only seized the nuclear plant, but also put the whole world at risk again. “It's been more than a year since the liberation of the plant from the invader. Scientific and security enterprises in the Chernobyl zone have already returned to normal operating mode. Ukraine and the whole world paid a high price for the elimination of the consequences of the disaster, which continues to this day. We must do everything to prevent the terrorist state from using nuclear power facilities to blackmail Ukraine and the world,” Zelensky said.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces called the accident at the Chernobyl NPP “this accident was the result of sham activities of the immoral moscow regime”. “The Chernobyl tragedy showed that lies, criminal irresponsibility and manipulation of information by the illicit communist system of the soviet union threatened the peaceful existence of the whole world”, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine notes.

On February 24, 2022, the kremlin regime with the support of belarus insidiously continued and unleashed an aggressive, unprovoked and unjust war against Ukraine, and again threatened to repeat the Chernobyl tragedy by occupying the station. The russian occupiers held Chernobyl workers hostage, destroyed the station’s monitoring and control systems, and put humanity in the face of irreversible catastrophic consequences for the second time, attempting an act of nuclear terrorism”, the statement says.

Thanks to the heroic and selfless actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on April 13, 2022 the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant was liberated from the russian occupiers-terrorists, the General Staff recalled.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine honor the heroes-liquidators, firefighters, Chernobyl operational personnel, servicemen and servicewomen, builders, scientists, doctors, all citizens of Ukraine who sacrificed their lives and health to stop the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine also made a statement on the anniversary of the Chernobyl NPP accident. “We remember the terrible consequences of the largest man-made disaster of the 20th century and honor the memory of all those who died and rescue heroes who took part in liquidation of the consequences of the accident at the cost of their own lives and health”, the statement says.

According to the MFA, through the consolidated efforts and interaction with the international donor community, it was possible to achieve significant success in overcoming the consequences of this unprecedented scale disaster for the sake of a safe future and sustainable development of humanity.

The Foreign Ministry also stressed that the russian federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine created unprecedented threats to the radiation and nuclear security of Ukraine, Europe and the world. And the MFA called on the international community to take uncompromising and decisive steps aimed at ensuring political, economic and legal consequences for the russian federation, including the expansion of sanctions against the russian nuclear energy sector, as well as for the direct involvement of the state concern “Rosatom” in crimes at the Zaporizhzhya NPP.

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine recalled in its statement that “after the independence of our state in 1991, Ukraine inherited the entire burden of consequences from the global man-made and environmental catastrophe. Step by step, over decades, the international cooperation in overcoming the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe was gradually established. Ukraine’s consolidated efforts and constructive interaction with our international partners enabled completion of the first stage of the construction of a new safe confinement over power unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.”

The State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety of Ukraine noted that the 37th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident and the first anniversary of the de-occupation of the station will now be inseparably linked. “The first one is when technology took over man and led to disaster, and the second one is when a man, out of his own ignorance and paranoia, caused harm to what was elaborated and achieved over the years, what was assumed to keep safety for the future: the Central Analytical Laboratory was destroyed, numerous sources of ionizing radiation were stolen and damaged, the “safety culture” concept was mutilated”, the honoring statement says.

The SSTC NRS also informs that the exclusion zone is gradually beginning to recover after occupation by the russian military. “The nature, inviolable for years, has undergone a crushing influence. After the de-occupation, the most worrying question for the specialists was if the occupiers did not spread radiation contamination from the exclusion zone, where they stepped with their feet and machinery drove, to the clean territories of the Kyiv region. This is how a “SURVEY” project came about, which was supported by the Norwegian Nuclear Regulatory Authority. Its main goal is to identify and reduce the risks of exposure of the population as a result of contact with radiation sources/ radioactive contamination, as well as to reduce public anxiety due to the assumptive risks associated with the stay of the occupiers in the exclusion zone”, the Center reports.

About 900 km of roads in the Kyiv region were examined by specialists from the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety under this project. Kindergartens, schools, hospitals, government agencies, private houses, apartments and estates were checked for radiation contamination: 63 apartments, 132 private houses with household plots, 130 public places and institutions, more than 400 household and military items used by the staff of occupying troops.

The SSTC NRS also emphasized that the nuclear and radiation security system, which had been worked out and implemented over the years, was destroyed in the Zone of Exclusion and Mandatory (Unconditional) Resettlement. It means that specialists will have to deal with the consequences of this shameful invasion for years.

The Center also mentioned the occupied ZNPP: “We do not know the scale of the damage caused to the station, and it will be possible to find it out only after complete de-occupation. But the alarming news received from the site is already forcing specialists to prepare for a lot of work to prevent the negative impact of the occupation on the environment and human health in the future”.

Besides, for the 37th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, the SSTC NRS held the event “NON-lecture: radiation safety at wartime” and presented the exposition “Destroyed borders: radiation survey of the Kyiv region”.

On the day of anniversary, the Chernobyl NPP released a video of telephone conversations on the night of the Chernobyl catastrophe, transcribed by the KGB.

The IAEA did not make any statement, though the Agency’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that he had a conversation with the President of Ukraine on the occasion of the Chernobyl tragedy and talked, in particular, about the protection of the Zaporizhzhia NPP. Similarly, the WANO did not post anything either on their website or social networks.

NNEGC “Energoatom” in its telegram channel reposted the Zelensky’s statement. At the same time, the RNPP emphasized that for every nuclear worker, the date of the Chernobyl accident will always resonate with pain in the heart, because such events have no statute of limitations.

“This is the second time that the Ukrainians recall the events of Chernobyl, while a full-scale war continues in the country. And although news from the front dominates other reports, the Chernobyl tragedy still remains a sad date for many nations. After all, the confrontation with the out-of-control atom, like a war, takes the health and life of many people”, Rivne NPP writes.

The Rivne plant adds that the lessons of Chernobyl have become an unshakable rule for nuclear scientists, which “levelled the superiority of Homo sapiens with which a person could relate to harnessing the energy of the atom. Work to improve safety continues constantly at nuclear power plants and there is no limit when it could possibly end. Nowadays, we understand that improvement of the safety of nuclear power plants with the development of technologies is a continuous process.”