Day of commemoration of the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident. They saved Ukraine and the world
December 14 — Day of Commemoration of the Liquidators of the Chernobyl Accident. They saved Ukraine and the world from nuclear disaster. The Chernobyl accident is at the same time a crime of the Soviet system against man and the environment and an example of the dedication, sacrifice and heroism of its liquidators.
The giantomania of large-scale industrial construction in the USSR, which was disguised by a pretended concern for the welfare of the Soviet people and the state, was in fact at its root deceitful and vicious.
At its core, it cared only for people and their needs in words, and in practice turned hundreds of millions of people into the screws and bolts of a huge soulless and cynical command-and-administration system.
The grandiose plans for the development of the so-called peaceful atom became the most dramatic and tragic example of the self-destruction of both the planned economic system of the USSR and the Soviet empire itself.
Already in the 1970s - from the beginning of the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which at that time bore Lenin's name, the results of inspections revealed massive violations of both the construction of the station itself, as well as possible accident risks and threats from the features of the nuclear reactors that were installed on it.
But the Moscow party leadership paid little attention to this. After all, the goal of the Kremlin was one - to overtake the capitalist countries of the West in the production of electricity at the lowest cost and thus prove in practice that the so-called socialist economy is able not only to compete, but also to overtake in volume and production efficiency the market economies of the United States and Western Europe.
Blinded by this struggle, as well as the participation of the Soviet empire in the arms race, and led the USSR to collapse and disintegration. But before that — to a nuclear catastrophe of planetary scale, which became the catalyst for further irreversible changes.
A few key facts.
On April 26, 1986, during the design tests, an accident occurred. It completely destroyed the station's fourth reactor and caused significant contamination of the surrounding area with radioactive substances.
As a result of the disaster, the population of the cities of Pripyat and Chernobyl and all other settlements within a radius of 30 km around the station was completely evacuated. The accident itself was one of the largest man-made disasters in the history of mankind.
Almost all workers and the first firefighter-liquidators died due to radiation exposure. The main part of the work on the elimination of the consequences of the accident was carried out in 1986—1987. They were attended by approximately 240,000 people. The total number of liquidators (including subsequent years) is about 600,000 people, mostly Ukrainians.
From the first days of the Chernobyl disaster, the Soviet leadership sought to hide its terrible consequences from its own society and the civilized world. But a large emission of radiation substances was recorded outside the USSR. Leading democratic states began to sound the alarm and demand from Moscow an explanation of the situation.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet empire were mobilized to eliminate the consequences of the accident. They began to tell their relatives and colleagues what was really happening at the scene of the disaster.
This is how the terrible truth was revealed both about the Chernobyl accident itself and its consequences, and about the anti-human essence of the Soviet authoritarian management system, under which this greatest man-made disaster of mankind occurred.
It is impossible to fully comprehend all the consequences and losses of the Chernobyl disaster. These are millions of broken human lives and destinies, huge polluted territories, the loss of the unique national and cultural heritage of Ukrainian Polissya, which are still recognizable to us.
Ukraine was the most affected. And it was the Chernobyl disaster and its terrible consequences that became one of the main arguments for Ukrainians on December 1, 1991, when they came to the polls and at the All-Ukrainian referendum with the result of more than 90% of the votes supported the Act of Proclamation of Independence of Ukraine, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on August 24, 1991.
So that this does not happen again. And all important decisions were made not far away in Moscow — the capital of the empire, but in Kiev, in Ukraine — by the democratically elected Ukrainian authorities.
The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster will remain with us forever, in our national history. And it must always be remembered that the world was saved by the humanity and good hearts of millions of ordinary people — firefighters, policemen, doctors, military.
Most of them are among veterans of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And today we honor the memory of those who are no longer with us, and we sincerely thank those who are still with us and still inspire us with their heroism and remind us once again that returning to the imperial past is unacceptable for Ukrainians.
That Ukraine in today's struggle for its independence and territorial integrity against the Russian aggressor well remembers and has learned the lesson of Chernobyl.
We ourselves are the masters of our land and our state.
We are aware of the high price for independence, which in particular the liquidator heroes paid, and are still being paid by the heroes of the current national liberation war of the Ukrainian people.
We remember. Let's not forget.
Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!
Department of Communications of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
