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How Chernobyl Brought the USSR to its Knees | 1986 | Time Travels Documentary
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Apr 25, 2025
In 1986 the Soviet Union was already at crisis point; tensions had been bubbling below the surface for years, and then the unthinkable happened. In Pripyat, Ukraine, the Chernobyl nuclear powerplant suffered a meltdown which could have global ramifications. What followed was a bungled and confused response from the Soviet leadership. But did the Chernobyl disaster really lead to the collapse of the Soviet Union just 5 years later? Journey through time to uncover amazing, dramatic and bizarre stories from the past - but also ask the questions, what does it look like now? And what if things had happened differently? From ancient Rome and colonial Australia, to Victorian era London, early-settler New Zealand and beyond - come with us as we uncover the the pivotal turning points in history that changed the destiny of empires and transformed our world. #history #documentary #timetravels #chernobyl
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0:00
There has been a nuclear accident in the Soviet Union and the Soviets have admitted that it happened
0:12
The Soviet version is this. One of the atomic reactors at the Chernobyl atomic power plant near the city of Kiev was damaged
0:19
And there is speculation in Moscow that people were injured and may have died
0:24
If I asked you to think of critical moments from the 1980s, then the Chernobyl disaster should come immediately to mind
0:30
Not only did it impact the lives of thousands and thousands of people in its initial wake
0:35
but it continues to impact victims to this day. But what kind of impact did the Chernobyl disaster have on the Soviet Union
0:42
Did it precipitate the collapse just a short five years later? Well, today, let's travel to Soviet Russia
0:47
and unravel the unfortunate events that led to the worst nuclear meltdown in history
0:57
The Cold War had divided the world into two halves
1:08
The capitalist West, led by the United States, and the communist East, headed by the Soviet Union
1:13
Though the US and USSR were the undisputed superpowers that governed the world
1:17
they were far from equal in strength. By the 1980s, the United States was a strong country
1:23
with willing allies across the world and a roaring economy. It also had the distinct advantage of actually working
1:29
rather than pretending to work and shooting people that said it didn't. On the other hand, the Soviet Union was a country slipping increasingly into stagnation and irrelevance
1:37
A series of bad leaders had left the country in an economic and political slump it could ill afford
1:43
while engaging in a nuclear arms race. A war in Afghanistan, often thought of as the Soviet Vietnam
1:48
drained the army and popular support for the government. Unrest was increasing across the Warsaw Pact, with many subservient satellite states
1:55
seeking to reclaim their self-determination and rebel against Soviet occupation. The same was occurring within the Union itself
2:02
as conquered peoples grew increasingly organised in their resistance to Soviet rule
2:07
Economically, things just weren't much better. Official growth figures for the national income had been as high as 10% annually in the 1950s
2:14
but by the 1980s, the official figure was 4%, the CIA estimates put it closer to 1%, and things needed to change
2:22
In 1985, a ray of hope appeared in the form of new General Secretary and leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, who promised to undo the stagnation that had taken hold of the USSR through economic and political reforms
2:34
At the 1986 Party Congress, Gorbachev promised to deliver a doubling of the GDP within 15 years by overcoming negative aspects of socionomic development as quickly as possible, and to, quote, learn the lessons of the past to the maximum
2:48
Part of how he planned to achieve this was through the embrace of new technologies and a shift from fossil fuel to nuclear energy all across the Soviet Union
2:56
He promised that atomic energy stations two and a half times more powerful than previous stations
3:01
would soon be coming online and replacing the older power stations entirely
3:06
The Soviet Union was going all in on nuclear power in a final attempt to reignite its economy
3:11
and save the Soviet system. Chernobyl and the nearby city of Pripyat in Ukraine were in many ways the model
3:17
for the new Soviet energy system. The site of Chernobyl was selected for a new nuclear power plant as early as 1966
3:24
At this time, the area was rural and underdeveloped, and the city of Pripyat had not even yet been built
3:30
But it was still near enough to major railway centres in Kiev to make it the perfect location
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The only issue is that the groundwater was closer to the surface than would be ideal
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and that the soil was too loose to hold up the structure. These problems were considered manageable, however
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and construction on the new power plant began. It was intended to be completed by 1975, but poor management in the construction meant that the first of the reactors was officially completed in the December of 1977
3:55
Bryukhanov, the plant director, wrote to a newspaper after the completion of the first reactor that 1977 will go down in the history of Soviet atomic energy as the year of the birth of an energy giant on the Pripyat
4:08
In December of 1978, Unit 2 came online. In December 1981, Unit 3 joined the grid
4:14
And by December 1983, Unit 4 came online. You may have noticed that all the reactors came online in December
4:21
This is due to Soviet production quotas being managed on a yearly basis
4:25
Annual reports needed to be filled, and worker bonuses relied on being completed by the 31st of December
4:31
There was always a rush at the end of the year to get things done. Despite this, none of the reactors were completed to their deadlines
4:37
The city of Pripyat was built to house the workers of the new plant and grew rapidly
4:41
Initial estimates put the likely population of the city at 18,000. By 1986, however, the city housed over 50,000 people
4:49
The standard of living in Pripyat was excellent when compared to the rest of the Soviet Union
4:53
The nuclear industry was privileged, and luxury goods such as cheese and sausages were freely available in supermarkets
4:59
The city had two stadiums and two swimming pools a rarity even in the most affluent cities Unfortunately the money to build all of this was often diverted from the plant Bryukhnov complained that the money being lost was needed to properly manage the plant itself
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He said, God forbid we suffer any serious mishap. I'm afraid that not only Ukraine
5:18
but the whole Union would not be able to deal with such a disaster. Nevertheless, for the people of Pripyat
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life was good, even as the Soviet Union declined around them. They were working in a good industry
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that the government was heavily invested in, even as the rest of the country fell into disrepair
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The city was new and luxurious for the time, and around Chernobyl it probably seemed as though the dream of a better future might finally come true
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The Chernobyl power plant itself was not quite as well built as the city that housed its workers, however
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It ran on poorly designed RBMK reactors, which were high-power channel reactor types
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that were lacking in safety and susceptible to dangerous operating conditions. This alone was dangerous, but was also compounded by poor operating procedures amongst the technicians
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All of this came to a head on the 25th of April 1986 when a deadly combination of these factors led to the worst nuclear disaster in human history
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The Unit 4 reactor was shut down for maintenance on the 25th of April
6:15
It was decided that since the reactor was coming offline anyway, the power plant would use the shutdown to conduct a safety test
6:21
This test was meant to determine whether the slowing turbine could, in the event of a loss of power, be used to provide enough electrical power to operate the water cooling pumps until the backup diesel generators came online
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This test had been conducted the previous year, but the turbine had failed to provide the power that was necessary
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It was hoped that the newly installed voltage regulators would allow the test to be conducted successfully
6:41
Though this was an essential test to the operation of the plant, it was conducted without properly first informing the engineers that would actually be on site
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The planned test also involved shutting off the reactor's emergency cooling system, reflecting an almost total disregard for safe operation procedures in favour of a quick and easy solution
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The shutdown of the reactor began at just after 1am on the 25th of April
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This was done by slowly lowering the power output over the course of many hours
7:07
until it was low enough that it could be used for the tests. By 3.47am, output had been lowered to 1,600 megawatts thermal, or MWT, from its usual 3,200 MWT
7:18
At 2pm, a call from Kiev requested that no further reduction in power output be made until the end of the day
7:23
as it was necessary for the city's normal operation. The test was meant to have been completed by night
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but this drive to fulfil quotas at the end of the month in Kiev meant the plant could not afford a further reduction in power
7:34
This kept the reactor running at half power until just after 11pm when it was finally allowed to continue its power reduction
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At midnight the shift changed and a new team of engineers took over the operation of the plant
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These engineers, led by a man named Dyatlov, came on shift expecting to be watching over a reactor
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that had been successfully tested during the day. They did not expect, however, to have to conduct the test themselves
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At the same time, lax safety standards meant that they did not have time to study the procedure either
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One engineer, Akimov, was actually reprimanded by Dyatlov for working too slowly
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because he had wanted to actually read the handbook for the test before he was willing to start fiddling with a nuclear reactor
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Fair enough. At the time of the shift change, power had been reduced to 720 MWT
8:16
and because the reactor had been running at half power for so long, xenon-135, a by-product of the fission reaction, had built up within the reactor
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Xenon-135 absorbs neutrons and therefore slows down the reaction. Running at full power, this by-product is burnt off as quickly as it's produced
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but by running at low power for so long, the reactor was being poisoned by it
8:37
By 12.30, the power level fell to about 500 MWT and control was transferred to an automatic regulating system
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It's possible that the operator failed to give the whole power command or that the system failed to control the reactor
8:49
What is known is that shortly after this, the power in the reactor fell to only 30 MWT
8:54
This amounted to only 5% of the power necessary to run the test with
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The engineers attempted to raise the output of the reactor by removing the control rods within it
9:03
The control rods were made of boron, which absorbed neutrons and therefore slowed down any reaction
9:08
They were tipped by graphite, and this will be important later. By removing the control rods, they managed to raise the reactor output back up to 200 MWT
9:16
This was still far below the necessary 760 MWT required for the test
9:20
but the reactor at last was no longer in danger of shutting down
9:25
At this point, the inexplicable decision was made to simply conduct the test anyway
9:29
Part of the test program was to increase the flow of water through the reactor. As such, just after 1am, two additional water pumps to the 6 already in operation
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increased the flow of liquid to the reactor. At the required power level, this would have been fine
9:43
But unfortunately, at the low output they were operating at, this added water only served to destabilise the reaction further
9:50
by absorbing yet more neutrons. After the low steam pressure alarm sounded, these reserve pumps were shut off
9:56
In order to even hold the reaction steady at the already hugely inadequate 200 MWT
10:01
all the engineers could do was remove more and more control rods, yielding their control over the reaction in order to keep the power output steady
10:07
By 1 only 9 of the 167 rods available were still inserted and regulating the reaction However they were now faced with a new problem The reserve pumps had been turned off and the water in the reactor was now heating far too quickly severely reducing its effectiveness as a coolant
10:23
The reaction began to increase in power quickly. This was ignored and the order was given to begin the test at 1.23am
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The test lasted 30 seconds, during which time the reaction spun completely out of control
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Finally, with the output increasing rapidly, the decision was made to press the emergency shutdown button
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This button inserted all of the control rods into the reactor at the same time
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in theory absorbing the neutrons and killing the reaction entirely. In reality though, the control rods turned an unstable reaction into a catastrophe
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Though the boron in the rods was capable of absorbing neutrons, the graphite tips were not
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As soon as the rods entered the reactor, water that had been absorbing neutrons was displaced
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and the temperature shot up immediately. This rapid increase in temperature cracked the cladding of the fuel rods within the reactor
11:07
blocking the control rods from inserting them any further. Within seconds, the power output jumped back up to 500 megawatts thermal and then again to over 30,000
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This was 10 times more than the reactor would normally be generating. This massive power output instantly burnt away the xenon-135 that had been choking the reactor and the temperature instantly increased
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The fuel rods themselves melted into the reactor water, producing a massive amount of steam that had nowhere to go
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There was only one possible outcome. The reactor exploded, lighting up the sky and littering radioactive debris across the plant
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17km away in the city of Pripyat, the firefighters on the night shift heard an explosion from the direction of the power plant
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They rushed to the windows and saw the fireball towering over Reactor 4. Without wasting any time, the fire crews rushed to their trucks and sped to the Chernobyl plant
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The engineers that had blown up the reactor, still unsure of exactly what had occurred
12:03
directed the firefighters towards the roof. The roofs of both Unit 3 and 4 were burning
12:09
and the firefighters split into two teams, with one team climbing the roof of Unit 4
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when they saw that the roof itself had collapsed. Fearing a short circuit if they were to use water hoses on the fires
12:19
and it being too difficult to attach a hose on the roof anyway, the firemen instead tried fighting the fire
12:24
by beating it with their hoses and covering the fire in sand. To make matters worse, the roof was covered in bitumen
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that had melted from the fire. One fireman remembered that if you stepped on it
12:34
you couldn't put one foot in front of the other. It tore off your boots. He also described the roof being covered in silvery bits of debris
12:40
that seemed to be catching fire at random. The firemen would simply kick these out of their way
12:46
To deal with the intense heat, the firemen removed their helmets and outer coverings. They had never been trained to work on nuclear sites
12:52
despite being located next to a nuclear power plant. They had no way of knowing that the silvery pieces of debris
12:57
they were so casually kicking aside were actually pieces of graphite and nuclear fuel
13:01
blown directly out of the core of the reactor. The moment they had set foot on the roof
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they were receiving a massive dose of radiation. The same thing was happening on the roof of Unit 3
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Within half an hour, the first fire crews were forced to come down from the roof, complaining of sickness
13:16
They were quickly sent to the hospital while replacements arrived and continued fighting the fire
13:19
It continued to spread, however, and hoses were finally placed on the roof of Unit 4
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However, in order to get enough water to the hoses, the firemen were forced to draw from the nearby cooling pond
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One fireman was forced to lead a truck on foot through a radioactive debris field to the water
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The debris punctured the truck's tyres and he described trying to help the truck. He said
13:38
Nevertheless, they managed to connect the hoses to a new water source and the fire was under control by 7am
13:49
Of the firefighters that attended the fire, six died of acute radiation poisoning while many, many more were hospitalised
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The initial response from the Soviet government was one of total confusion
14:00
Though the plant was officially run by Moscow, it was located within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
14:05
This meant that although Moscow was informed of the disaster, information was slow to trickle down to people in Kiev that would have actually been managing the evacuation of the area
14:15
On the next day, the morning of the 26th, all that was known in Kiev was that there had been a fire at the power plant that was now extinguished, and that Moscow would be sending a delegation to the area
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After assessing the site, it was finally concluded over 36 hours after the explosion that the area was dangerous
14:30
An evacuation of Pripyat and the surrounding areas was organised immediately, and over 50,000 people left their homes for the last time
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They were not told that the evacuation would be permanent, and decades later their belongings still litter the streets
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The Soviet government remained quiet on the issue internally and internationally until the 28th of April
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when radiation was detected in Sweden, having drifted there from the Soviet Union
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This forced the USSR to finally admit that there had actually been an accident at the power plant
15:02
Within the Soviet Union itself, an announcement was read on television. An official announcement from the Council of Ministers
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There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Atomic Power Station. One of the atomic reactors was damaged
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The consequences of the accident are being taken care of. Help is being given to the victims of the accident A government commission has been set up this was the extent of the information provided However this also occurred during the period of openness encouraged by Gorbachev
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The news of the true extent of the disaster spread quickly, and criticisms of communism
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were tied clearly into criticisms not just of the nuclear program, but of the government's
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reluctance to inform or properly oversee its people. Internationally, the government continued to downplay the disaster, but the amount of
15:47
radiation spilling into neighbouring countries made this difficult to believe. Amazingly, the International Workers' Day parade in Kiev on the 1st of May wasn't cancelled
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despite radiation still leaking heavily from the nearby reactor. This was just all part of
16:00
Soviet efforts to downplay the effects of the incident. Eventually, an exclusion zone was
16:04
established in a 30km radius around the power plant, which over the ensuing years would lead
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to the relocation of over 300,000 people in total. The full clean-up of the plant would take another
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seven months. The area to this day remains uninhabitable and will remain so for another
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3,000 years at least. Radiation from this disaster spilled across almost all of Europe and Gorbachev
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himself stated years later that the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl was perhaps the real cause
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of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. The effects of the disaster in the USSR
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are difficult to quantify but it had an undeniable impact on the Soviet Union's stability. Now to
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clarify some context, many people use Russia and Soviet Union interchangeably. But this is highly
16:45
misleading, as although Russians made up the largest ethnic group and the Soviet Union was
16:50
led largely by Russians who often enforced Russification policies, Russians themselves made up only half the population of the Soviet Union. Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Belarusians
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Ukrainians, Moldavians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Kyrgyz all maintained separate Soviet republics within the USSR
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This isn't even counting the many smaller ethnic groups that held autonomous areas within the Soviet republics
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Many of these areas had been forced to join the Soviet Union, whether it was in the initial revolution or during the Second World War
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Independence was, for many, still within living memory. This also meant that nationalist sentiment was always bubbling away within the Soviet Union
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just hidden beneath a repressive police force and propaganda, ensuring the people that a better future was only a few years away
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By the 1980s, it had become clear that the Soviet Union was failing
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Nationalist movements began to gain steam in the republics, which, when combined with Gorbachev's relaxing of political restrictions
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meant that the communist toll on power was weakening, but not yet broken. Chernobyl, however, changed that
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Anti-nuclear protests started across the USSR, which quickly turned into eco-nationalist movements
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The nuclear reactors came to be seen as symbols of Russian oppression
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poorly built and badly run pieces of infrastructure that thanks to Russian incompetence posed a legitimate threat to the survival of the smaller
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nations of the Soviet Union. If a reactor in Lithuania, for example, had exploded, virtually
18:15
the entire country would have been rendered radioactive. It didn't help that most staff
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manning these reactors were Russians rather than locals. In the September of 1988, a Lithuanian
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nationalist group organised 20,000 people into a ring of life around the Ignalia nuclear power plant
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This was intended as a protest against nuclear power, but the undercurrent was of Lithuanians
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reasserting their national identity through opposing the Soviet government. Though the disaster was in Ukraine, there were nuclear reactors all across the Soviet Union
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Anti-nuclear demonstrations quickly became a form of nationalist expression that severely undermined the Soviet government all across the Union
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By allowing ecological groups to organise and express their concerns, the communist grip on power was undermined
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While history is complex, and it cannot be said that any single event was the direct and only cause of any other
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What the Chernobyl disaster did do was exacerbate tensions that had already existed within the Soviet Union
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Nationalist groups were emboldened, Soviet incompetence and corner-cutting was put on display to its people
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and an already controversial leader was landed with a crisis. In this sense, the Chernobyl disaster absolutely played a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union
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Had the Chernobyl disaster not occurred, the Soviet Union's shortcomings would not have been brought so clearly and dramatically to the forefront of people's thoughts
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As Gorbachev said, the real collapse of the Soviet system began with the meltdown
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That being said, only so much can be laid at the feet of Chernobyl. The problems present within the Soviet Union, economic stagnation, nationalist successionism
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and political instability, were all still going to bubble to the surface, regardless of whether a power plant spewed radiation over Ukraine and Belarus
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It's entirely possible that without Chernobyl exacerbating these issues, the USSR would
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have been able to limp onwards for a few more years, and Gorbachev would have been able to carry out more reforms
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Perhaps the post-Soviet states would enjoy a closer relationship, or the Soviet Union
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would have continued in a form closer to the modern European Union than the Stalinist empire
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it was descended from. But the fact is that the center could not hold, but Chernobyl simply made that clear
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to everyone watching. Hello time travellers, thank you so much for watching this video
20:23
If you enjoyed it, leave a comment below, and don't forget to subscribe to the channel. Until next time, remember, history doesn't repeat, but certainly echoes
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