RT speaks to Chernobyl liquidators, doctors, scientists, archivists, and residents of the Belarusian exclusion zone
The Chernobyl disaster remains one of the defining technological catastrophes of the 20th century. Its impact is felt to this day, with survivors still living with its consequences. The latest RT documentary Chernobyl: A Lesson for Humanity returns to the exclusion zone nearly 40 years later to hear from those who saw the aftermath up close: liquidators, firefighters, doctors, scientists, archivists, and the people who worked in the evacuated territories.
Our RT team has filmed through the Belarusian sector of the exclusion and resettlement zone; the Chernobyl plant lies just seven kilometers from the border, and abandoned villages still bear the marks of the 1986 evacuation.
The movie features eyewitnesses who worked in local command structures during the liquidation, a nurse who treated the first irradiated patients in Moscow, a Russian nuclear agency adviser who explains the reactor failure, and the heroes of the clean-up effort: veteran ‘liquidators’ who were at the scene 40 years ago.
Their accounts trace the disaster from the first confusion and evacuation of the city of Pripyat to the construction of the sarcophagus, the contamination of vast areas in Belarus and Ukraine, and the long-term medical and ecological consequences.
Watch RT’s full film Chernobyl: A Lesson for Humanity below.
April 26, 2026 at 10:23PM
RT