NUCLEON

Two absolutely fantastic ominous signs I found while wandering in Fallout 4

Two absolutely fantastic ominous signs I found while wandering in Fallout 4

Sunday is the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Forgive the cliché, but it was a disaster waiting to happen.

We thought we were safe from any leaking radiation when a structure called the NSC was completed in 2019. But a few years later Russia attacked Ukraine and damaged Chernobyl.

BTW: Chernobyl (Чернобыль) is Chornobyl (Чорнобиль) in Ukrainian.

Above rises the “new safe confinement” (NSC) – the largest movable steel structure ever built, taller than the Statue of Liberty, wider than the Colosseum, its arch curving overhead like an aircraft hangar built for giant planes. Completed in 2019 at a cost of $2.5bn (£1.85bn) and funded by 45 countries, the NSC was built to shield the world from what lies beneath it. It sits at the heart of a vast exclusion zone, a radioactive landscape the size of Cyprus, largely abandoned by humanity. Stray dogs roam the plant in packs – workers advise against petting them. Inside is “the sarcophagus” – a grey concrete tomb erected in just 206 days to cover the ruins of reactor No 4, which exploded on 26 April 1986 in the worst nuclear accident to date. Up close, the sarcophagus looks almost makeshift – massive slabs stacked like giant building blocks, rust streaking the joins. Inside, 180 tonnes of nuclear fuel and four to five tonnes of radioactive dust remain trapped. The NSC was constructed to buy time: to allow the unstable sarcophagus to be dismantled safely over decades, while shielding against the consequences in case it collapses. What its funders did not anticipate was a war – Chornobyl was occupied in the first weeks of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine – much less a drone strike on the facility three years later. In the north-west corner of the roof, a temporary patch marks where a cheap $20,000 Russian drone tore through the structure on 14 February 2025, punching a hole in the arch and compromising the very function the arch was built for. “If the sarcophagus collapses, over a hundred tonnes of nuclear fuel would be released into the air,” said the plant’s director general, Serhii Tarakanov.

Moscow created this disaster and now Moscow is trying to rekindle it.

At the beginning of the war, Russian troops occupied Chernobyl. They were about as careful as you would expect. They withdrew as Ukrainians took back the northern territory, but it's likely many of the stupid occupiers became ill as a result of the experience.

Russian soldiers who occupied Chernobyl only have a year to live, Ukrainian minister says

The 2019 miniseries Chernobyl gives us a good idea of what happened in 1986. It's true that some minor characters were combined and events (particularly in later episodes) were speeded up. But the science was sound and the actions of the main characters were accurately represented. If you have HBO, it is astonishingly good TV.

they’re so lonely out there… many are unspoken saviors of mankind, machines used in place of human liquidators during containment efforts. others are humble civilian cars that once drove around prypiat, carrying families to the local amusement park. now left abandoned in a city reclaimed by nature.