The Chornobyl disaster of April 26, 1986, became the second omen. What are the consequences for Ukraine? Permanent evacuation of 129,000 residents from the contaminated 30-kilometers zone, 2,200 square kilometers of arable land banned from agricultural use, colossal material and human losses, and a psychological blow so powerful that it expedited the collapse of the USSR. 

The irreversible disintegration of the USSR started exactly after the nuclear catastrophe at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.

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The main actors during the Chornobyl disaster were the cleanup workers: soldiers, who used spades to clean away chunks of radioactive graphite on the roof of Reactor Four, and pilots, who dumped lead, boron, dolomite, and sand from helicopters into the crater of the wrecked reactor. By the way, the shelter was built by courageous construction workers at the cost their own health and lives. 

I asked Yurii Andreiev, president of a Ukraine-wide public organization of the disabled, Chornobyl of Ukraine Union, what the implications are, and how the heroism of those brave people has been honored. This is what his said: “ After the Chornobyl disaster, 356,000 disaster fighters from Ukraine alone have passed through the Chornobyl Zone. Out of these, 137,000are already dead. Governmental support for Chornobyl disaster fighters is getting scarcer and scarcer with each passing year.  And only the verbal tsunamis of our officials keep gaining impetus.  This is what we saw under Yushchenko. And the same continues under Yanukovyvch.