The Soviet military's performance at Chernobyl

Abstract

THE ACCIDENT at the Chernobyl nuclear power station (NPS) on 26 April 1986 was a disaster of global proportions that has changed the politics of nuclear power in the Soviet Union and abroad. It has also given rise to an enormous volume of governmental and corporate studies, scholarly and popular books and articles, and even poetry, films and plays. Except in Soviet newspaper and journal accounts, however, surprisingly little has been written about the performance of one of the major institutional actors at Chernobyl-the Soviet military.1 This article is an effort to correct, at least in part, this oversight. More specifically, it: (1) identifies the principal organisational actors in the Soviet armed forces that were active in the Chernobyl clean-up;2 (2) examines how and when the commanders of major units learned of the accident and arrived on the scene; (3) analyses the tasks performed by the Soviet military; (4) evaluates the performance of representative military units; and (5) seeks to discern lessons from the performance of the military that may be applicable to other crisis situations. In support of this last task, a comparison is also made of the Soviet military's performance at Chernobyl and after the 1988 Armenian earthquake.