Sophia Arkadiyivna is now retired as mayor of her hometown of Kupovate. "Nuclear power has never really gone away, it's even gone up despite Chernobyl," says Marples, the historian in Alberta. That rate of production is second only to France. Meanwhile, dependence on nuclear energy crept up to 55% of the country's production, according to the IAEA. The Chernobyl cleanup took a substantial chunk of newly independent Ukraine's national budget. Ukrainians were finally in charge of their own nuclear industry, responsible for 12 large nuclear reactors, with several more planned. "All anybody needed to do to vote for independence was say one word: 'Chernobyl,'" Samoilenko says. Ukraine declared independence and the Soviet Union fell apart.
"The only way to protect the environment is through democratic action - because everybody has to be involved in protecting the things that affect everybody," says Samoilenko.īy 1991, they had their wish. The Soviet government tolerated youth environmental movements, but behind closed doors, the group pushed for Ukrainian independence. Soon other environmental scientists joined with the dissidents, and established an organization called Green World.
But I did understand that we're no less deserving of dignity than Russians," Samoilenko says. "Before Chernobyl, I didn't understand why we needed to be independent. He linked up with Ukraine's nascent independence movement to find some answers. After all, the power plant is just 60 miles north of Ukraine's biggest population center. He says he knew there were some risks associated with nuclear energy, but felt misled by the government in Moscow about the scope of the blasts. Yuriy Samoilenko was the chief environmental inspector at Kyiv's city hall at the time of the Chernobyl meltdown. As far as nuclear power was concerned, Ukrainians were not trusted to run it themselves," says David Marples, a historian at Canada's University of Alberta and author of multiple books about the Chernobyl disaster.Īfter the disaster, Soviet Ukrainian bureaucrats raised difficult questions about why they weren't involved in oversight. "Ukraine was looked at like a kind of outback. Like many aspects of Soviet life, the nuclear industry was defined by ethnic segregation. "Moscow developed nuclear energy above all to control everything - to keep it close and protected from possible conflict," says Oleksandr Sukhodolia, a Ukrainian energy policy expert. The Soviet Union put nuclear science at the center of its Cold War strategy - both economic and military. How Russia's nuclear energy helped lead to an independent Ukraine It is the largest plant not only in Ukraine, but in all of Europe.ĭmytro Smolyenko/Future Publishing via Getty Images Six power units generate electricity at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, in southeastern Ukraine, on July 9, 2019.
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