Why did Russians dig trenches in radioactive Chernobyl woods?
Even Ukrainians who stayed after the nuclear disaster tried to warn their enemies
Deep in the forest around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor is the wooden cottage where Baba Hanya lives. She has been there for as long as anyone can remember, fermenting her homemade wine and cooking pancakes for visitors. To date, she has lived through the Second World War, nuclear disaster and the Russian invasion.
She’s 90 years old, and she’s not afraid of anything, except perhaps being alone.
Reactor No 4 at the power station exploded 37 years ago, on April 26, 1986. Untold numbers died from thyroid cancer and suicide, and the catastrophe became one of the principal factors behind Mikhail Gorbachev’s desperate efforts to reform the Soviet Union, which unleashed forces beyond the leader’s control. Less than six years later the USSR collapsed.