Russian forces have used hypersonic missiles to destroy ground targets in their invasion of Ukraine—the first time such weapons have been used in combat—and a quantity of radioactive material has disappeared from a monitoring lab near the defunct Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. On March 19 Russian defence ministry spokesman Majorread more

On November 29th, officials involved with the New Safe Confinement (NSC) project gathered near the site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, to celebrate the installation of the massive NSC structure over top of the plant’s aging containment building. The NSC building, meant to isolate the entire power plant from the surrounding environment for the next century, required a major feat of engineering to bring into being.
read more

One way to determine what the aftermath of radioactive pollution from the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan will be is to look at what happened in Eastern Europe after Chernobyl exploded in 1986. When talking about Chernobyl in the July 12th edition of the New York Times, Joe Nocera notes that, "Oddly enough, the 25th anniversary of the worst nuclear accident in history has been marked by journalism about animals." But he knows someone who was directly exposed to radiation from the power plant meltdown in the Ukraine.
read more