Russia's Nuclear Terror

… apparently the military leadership of the battalion of armor that rumbled through the forest kicking up dust, and then dug trenches to fortify their position were unaware of Chernobyl’s history. I guess they don’t have Google.

Russian Troops Suffer ‘Acute Radiation Sickness’ After Digging Chernobyl Trenches
https://news.yahoo.com/russian-troops-suffer-acute-radiation…

The Daily Beast
Russian Troops Suffer ‘Acute Radiation Sickness’ After Digging Chernobyl Trenches
Barbie Latza Nadeau
Thu, March 31, 2022, 1:38 AM·2 min read

Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after suffering “acute radiation sickness” from contaminated soil, according to Ukrainian officials.

The troops, who dug trenches in a contaminated Red Forest near the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, are now reportedly being treated in a special medical facility in Gomel, Belarus. The forest is so named because thousands of pine trees turned red during the 1986 nuclear disaster. The area is considered so highly toxic that not even highly specialized Chernobyl workers are allowed to enter the zone.

intercst

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A truly remarkable combination of utter ignorance, stupidity, arrogance, and sadness.

david fb

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A truly remarkable combination of utter ignorance, stupidity, arrogance, and sadness.

Londo said it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sIWDynqHgI

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B5 has become a treasure trove.

david fb

military leadership of the battalion of armor that rumbled through the forest kicking up dust, and then dug trenches to fortify their position were unaware of Chernobyl’s history. I guess they don’t have Google.

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Russian military must be pretty stupid to not remember that the Chernobyl accident in 1986. The reactors were designed, built and operated by Russians.

Maybe the Ukrainian Chernobyl plant operators purposely did not want to give the Russians any warnings about digging trenches and kicking up dust.

Jaak

Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after suffering “acute radiation sickness” from contaminated soil, according to Ukrainian officials.

Could this be Ukrainian disinformation? The environmental levels around Chernobyl are in the range of 1-10 microsieverts/hour.
www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/radiation-levels…

One month’s exposure would be
24hr/d x 30d x 10 microSv/hr = 7200 = 7 milliSv

A dose “which would cause radiation sickness, including nausea, lower white blood cell count” is 1,000 mSv which is two orders of magnitude greater.

Anybody have more definitive information?

DB2

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Anybody have more definitive information?

DB2

I saw mention that they were “digging in” where the hot stuff was buried?

Of course the Ukrainians might be messing with their minds! The Russians are still complaining about the fuel depot on Russian territory that got hit, never mind their own perfidy on the subject.

Tim

Oh, apparently sanctions have led to a shortage of sugar in Russia … wouldn’t that be a good thing for the general population? I keep trying to imagine 8 YO kids holding up protest signs demanding their candy fix?

https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-russia-sugar-…

COMMODITIES NEWS
APRIL 1, 202212:46 PM UPDATED 19 HOURS AGO

Russia faces rising sugar prices, shortages as traders divert shipments

By Maytaal Angel

LONDON (Reuters) - Commodity traders have started diverting sugar shipments away from Russia, according to industry sources and shipping data, a move set to further boost soaring domestic prices and ratchet up pressure on the Russian government to cool food inflation.

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Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after suffering “acute radiation sickness” from contaminated soil, according to Ukrainian officials.

Could this be Ukrainian disinformation? The environmental levels around Chernobyl are in the range of 1-10 microsieverts/hour.

Yeah, that’s the walking-around environmental level.

What’s the digging-trenches-and-breathing-the-dust environmental level?

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intercst

… apparently the military leadership of the battalion of armor that rumbled through the forest kicking up dust, and then dug trenches to fortify their position were unaware of Chernobyl’s history. I guess they don’t have Google.

The entire episode is a graphic example of how horrifically incompetent are the troops carrying out Vlad’s Folly.

Firstly, the folks who command troops, sending them into the poisoned land, in the first place.

But THEN, troops unaware of the problem, GOING IN, DIGGING IN.

Just how stupid and uninformed can Ruskie officers and conscripts be???

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Just how stupid and uninformed can Ruskie officers and conscripts be???

The conscripts wouldn’t have a clue. Most, if not all, of them probably have birth years beginning with ‘20’. Same goes for the junior officers. The field-grade officers (majors and colonels) might know of Chernobyl because they heard something about it in history class, but being in the army, probably don’t know the dangers. Besides, in a soviet-style system, if the general says “Dig a hole!” you dig a hole.

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Several hundred Russian soldiers were forced to hastily withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine after suffering “acute radiation sickness” from contaminated soil, according to Ukrainian officials…
The conscripts wouldn’t have a clue. Most, if not all, of them probably have birth years beginning with ‘20’. Same goes for the junior officers. The field-grade officers (majors and colonels) might know of Chernobyl because they heard something about it in history class…

I’m sure the mothers of contaminated soldiers are so proud of their children’s participation in Vladimir Putin’s quest for Russian empire. I’m sure also that the young, hip, modern Russians in Moscow or St. Petersburg agree that Vlad’s dream was totally worth destroying the fun, Western-style lives they’ve enjoyed for the last 15 or more years.

In just a month, one vain man’s egocentric obsession has driven painful wedges between Russians and Ukrainians, Europeans, Poles, Baltics, Scandinavians, and Americans. I’m sure that open-minded young Russians will be glad that Vlad has separated them from their decadent old friends. They’re sure to forge fast cultural affinity and deep, warm friendships with their new besties in China and Iran.

All Russians born since 1989 now can share the same lifestyle their parents and grandparents endured in the “good old days” back in the USSR.

Russia’s empty store shelves 30+ years ago:
https://www.google.com/search?q=empty+shelves+soviet+union&a…

Russia’s empty store shelves today:
https://www.google.com/search?q=empty+shelves+brand+stores+r…

So long decadence. Hello, austerity.

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The field-grade officers (majors and colonels) might know of Chernobyl because they heard something about it in history class, but being in the army, probably don’t know the dangers. Besides, in a soviet-style system, if the general says “Dig a hole!” you dig a hole.

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They flunked the military school exams on radioactive hazards and command duties. Russia has plenty of other nuclear sites in Russia that have gone awry and are still highly contaminated. They know all about radioactive materials and radiation hazards. They have plenty of nuclear engineers and scientists who engineer nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. They could have called them to ask about Chernobyl site contamination.

Jaak

mmrmnhrm
Just how stupid and uninformed can Ruskie officers and conscripts be???

The conscripts wouldn’t have a clue. Most, if not all, of them probably have birth years beginning with ‘20’. Same goes for the junior officers. The field-grade officers (majors and colonels) might know of Chernobyl because they heard something about it in history class, but being in the army, probably don’t know the dangers. Besides, in a soviet-style system, if the general says “Dig a hole!” you dig a hole.

Points taken, but further up the chain of command, WAY UP. Looking at maps.

One would expect that there would be broad over reaching planning that completely stayed clear of the radio-active disaster area.

It appears that no such thought process or planning took place.

THAT’S where the most egregious part and the incompetent aspect of lack of planning for Vlad’s Folly failed to take place.

Could this be Ukrainian disinformation?

IAEA Director General Statement on Situation in Ukraine
www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-38-iaea-directo…
The IAEA has not been able to confirm reports of Russian forces receiving high doses of radiation while being in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. The IAEA is seeking further information in order to provide an independent assessment of the situation.

DB2

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Thank you for recommending this post to our Best of feature.

Just how stupid and uninformed can Ruskie officers and conscripts be???

Actually I’ve been trying to explain since the beginning. It is not just the raw (barely trained 19 yo draftees that are just cannon and Machinegun fodder.

On my first ever long range ASW Ginclear (mission to work out of foreign NATO bases while tracking Soviet Boombers heading south towards their mid-Atlantic stations). Stumbled on a Soviet Destroyer after receiving a ‘Mayday’ that was burning a couple hundred miles south of Iceland. Most of the crew had abandoned ship with only the firefighters staying on board to fight the fires. They did managed to put the fires out but the ship had to be towed back to port. When we got to Norway they briefed us that another ship of the same class running at top speed had blown up in the Black sea with no survivors a couple years before. These were very fast ships with gas turbine engines. So a couple months later we got a highly classified briefing that thanks to this one not sinking or blowing up they discovered that the jet exhaust pipes from the engines ran through the spare torpedo storage room. The heat from high speed ops set off the torpedo warheads.

This story was mostly covered up for a short time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severomorsk_Disaster

Severomorsk Disaster

The Severomorsk Disaster was a deadly series of munitions fires that resulted in the detonation and destruction of large amounts of munitions that lasted from May 13 to 17, 1984, within the Okolnaya naval munitions depot, near the Severomorsk Naval Base (headquarters of the Northern Fleet of the Soviet Navy). The detonation occurred in the Northern Russian “closed” town of Severomorsk (Russian: ???´???), over 900 miles (1,448.4 kilometers) from the Russian capital Moscow.[6][7]

Many of you will remember when the Russian Oscar II Class Nuclear sub sank and they tried to blame it on being rammed by an American LA class boat? Only barely mentioned was that the Oscar II was very much larger than the LA class.

In the end my suspicion that poor torpedo maintenance on practice torpedoes in upper tubes caused them to leak highly corrosive Otto fuel II onto warshot torpedoes in the lower tubes and set off the warhead. It was not the first time it happened.

Anymouse

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I am going to remain skeptical on these reports until I see something more definitive.

Below are some numbers crunched by a professor, using some reasonable assumptions and the known contamination levels in and around Chernobyl.

https://www.ans.org/news/article-3816/update-on-ukraine/

Responding to dramatic news reports of busloads of Russian soldiers being rushed to Belarus with acute radiation syndrome as a result of digging trenches in the Exclusion Zone, Kathryn Higley, a professor at Oregon State University’s School of Nuclear Science and Engineering, told Nuclear Newswire the following:

“I looked at the data for soil concentrations of radionuclides in the Chernobyl vicinity and made an assumption about workers digging trenches to generate dust loadings of about 1 mg/m3 of air. I then multiplied this air concentration (mg/m3) times stated soil concentrations (Bq/m3) to get radionuclide concentrations in air (Bq/m3). I then did unit conversions to generate microcuries/ml and compared these to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s derived air concentrations (DACs) for radiation workers. (DACs are air concentrations that workers can be exposed to for 2,000 hours and not exceed the 5-rem annual limit.) The estimated exposures were all less than 0.01 DAC, meaning that inhalation doses would not generate an acute radiation response.”

The DAC limit would be for a 5 REM exposure. Radiation poisoning symptoms would not appear until a person has received 40 REM or more in a short period of time.

  • Pete
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The DAC limit would be for a 5 REM exposure. Radiation poisoning symptoms would not appear until a person has received 40 REM or more in a short period of time.

From the link:
The estimated exposures were all less than 0.01 DAC, meaning that inhalation doses would not generate an acute radiation response.

Hopefully, the IAEA can shed some factual light on what was going on at Chernobyl in the last month.

  • Pete

The estimated exposures were all less than 0.01 DAC, meaning that inhalation doses would not generate an acute radiation response.

Good to know. The original news didn’t seem reasonable.

DB2

The DAC limit would be for a 5 REM exposure. Radiation poisoning symptoms would not appear until a person has received 40 REM or more in a short period of time.

From the link:
The estimated exposures were all less than 0.01 DAC, meaning that inhalation doses would not generate an acute radiation response.

Hopefully, the IAEA can shed some factual light on what was going on at Chernobyl in the last month.

  • Pete

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I think the 0.01 DAC number is too low to be correct.

0.01 DAC = 0.05 Rem = 50 millirem

Medical whole body CT = 1000 millirem
Average US annual dose = 620 millirem

Jaak

1 Like

Energy Minister: Russian soldiers who were in Chornobyl have a year to live at most
Source: Pravda (UA)

According to Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko, all the soldiers who have been to the Exclusion Zone have received large doses of radiation, and their military equipment has also been contaminated, the Ministry’s press service reports.

“The Russian soldiers’ ignorance went as far off the scale as the dosimeters we used to check the background radiation in the places where the invaders were deployed. They dug into contaminated soil with their bare hands, put radioactive sand into bags for fortifications, and inhaled the dust. After a month of that kind of exposure, they have at most a year to live. Or rather, they won’t be living, but slowly dying of their illnesses,” said the minister.

He said the Russian military had looted the plant and the administrative offices, taking everything from crockery to spare parts and instruments.

“It’s not just all of the occupiers’ troops and their ‘trophies’ that are contaminated. So is all the military equipment that has passed through Chornobyl – about 10,000 items. Every Russian soldier will bring a piece of Chornobyl home, whether he’s alive or dead,” Galushchenko said.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/04/8/7338211/

Admittedly, it is Pravda, but one would be expecting them to cover it up, not say how terrible it was.

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