Key points
- The Ministry of Internal Affairs has released a documentary entitled Under the Atomic Wind to mark the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
- The film follows people who were born near the Chernobyl plant, left after 1986 and have now returned to serve in the exclusion zone – a rescuer, a police officer, a national guardsman and a border guard.
- The visual backdrop for the film is provided by the updated displays at the National Chernobyl Museum.
- The documentary is available on the Interior Ministry’s YouTube channel.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has released a documentary entitled Under the Atomic Wind, telling the stories of people who have returned to live and serve in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone decades after the disaster. The film has been timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the accident.
The documentary portrays the lives of self-settlers who remain in the exclusion zone despite the risks, and also features footage from the territory of the plant itself.
Its main characters are people who were born and grew up near the Chernobyl plant – after the 1986 disaster they were forced to leave their homes, and have now returned to the zone in a different capacity. Among them are a rescuer, a police officer, a serviceman of the National Guard and a border guard.
Together with one of the border guards, the film crew of the Interior Ministry’s Communications Department travelled to the village of Korohod, some 15 kilometres from the plant. There, for the first time in 40 years, he saw his parents’ home.
The film also tells the story of Oleksii, a serviceman of the 28th Chernobyl Regiment of the National Guard. He was on duty when Russia’s full-scale invasion began and the plant was seized by Russian forces. He spoke about the eight months he spent in captivity and his service in the exclusion zone.
The visual backdrop for the film is provided by the updated displays at the National Chernobyl Museum.
The documentary can be viewed on the Interior Ministry’s YouTube channel.
The accident at the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant occurred in the early hours of 26 April 1986 and remains the largest man-made disaster in human history.
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