Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Chernobyl was ‘lucky’ in the sense that it’s a highly forested and ecologically active area. So a lot of the radioactive materials that were scattered around were absorbed by plants, fungi and so on and are bound up. There’s also a very active forest floor, constant deposition of leaf debris, the normal life cycle of plants and mosses and so on that would have provided a lot of coverage over the years and taken a lot of loose materials out of the environment.

The problem is these guys reportedly dug trenches and burned vegetation.

We are absolutely not outside the danger zone in terms of half-lives of those materials. Two of the most dangerous are close to that but not quite yet and others will be problematic for extremely long periods of time.

Chernobyl is also quite an unusual site as the entire contents of the reactor were effectively scattered around by a steam explosion and the design of the reactor is quite different to most current types in the sense that it uses a large graphite core as the moderator. Graphite (carbon) is flammable, and when it was exposed to air it reacted with oxygen and burned, that was the main vector for sending contamination into the atmosphere. It’s an unusual incident because the core was fully exposed. Fukushima, in contrast, never exposed the core, had a containment structure and had no flammable graphite involved.

Closer to the site, it’s very probable that there are all sorts of particles, dusts and so on scattered around that would have simply been ejected by the steam explosion. That could include plutonium, uranium and all sorts of very very nasty stuff.

It was cleaned up but it certainly wasn’t completely decontaminated, which is why it’s been an exclusion area for decades and will continue to be for a very long time.

Digging into that soil and spending time sitting in those trenches is very likely an EXTREMELY bad idea.

From a conflict point of view what shocks me is how they have behaved around this and other nuclear sites. It demonstrates that they have incredibly poor or non existent technical advice. Russia shouldn’t be short of nuclear engineering technical skills. Rosatom is one of the most experienced designers of nuclear power plants in the world, but obviously had absolutely zero input into advising the military.

Taking those kinds of risks at Chernobyl is just beyond belief and they were using explosives and shells at the active, modern VVER plant at Zaporizhzhia. That didn’t pose much risk from the reactors as they are in multiple layers of containment designed to survive missile strikes, but there are large amounts of spent fuel in ponds and dry storage units on the site that are very vulnerable and could have caused a major incident with serious regional consequences.

It just shows a total lack of expertise and technical information and probably very poor command structure and discipline.

We’re clearly looking at a military that’s a long, long way from its peak during the Soviet era.

It worries me because it’s not very rational or sensible behaviour for a major nuclear power.

Thats whats he is hoping for,if he doesnt have the russian people with him,he wont get anywhere

I wouldnt bet on that,Putin can easily turn this around in his propaganda as an attack on Russia.

You know how Putin love to play the victim

He still have 2/3 of Russia behind him

And no you wont see them in Ukraine most likely,you will probably see them sent to Russias western and eastern flanks,where Russia allready have taken reserves,and those experienced soldiers from there are being sent to Ukraine to join up with wagner group and start again.

I dont think this war is over yet

Of course they are. Just have a look at their posting history!