Like the author of this article (“Allahpundit”, a truly far-gone TDS sufferer), when I first heard about Russian troops digging trenches in the soil around Chernobyl after capturing the complex I thought it was just propagandistic bullshit from the Ukranians.

After all, the whole world knows about Chernobyl, right? It’s very much a part of my lifetime, and the superb mini-series of the same name in 2019 brought it to the attention of later generations; Millennials and Gen-Z’s like my kids.

Certainly the military and political leaders of Russia would know, and hence would give special instructions to the military units they wanted to take over Chernobyl, right?

Experts scoffed. Yes, they said, Russians (and Ukrainians) in the vicinity would have been exposed to higher than normal levels of radiation as movement in the area kicked radioactive dust up into the air. And yes, if the reports were true that the Russians had spent time in the no-go zone known as the “Red Forest,” then they might expect to walk away with a higher long-term risk of cancer than the average person. But radiation sickness requires a truly massive dose. And besides, why the hell would they be digging trenches in the Red Forest? Surely they’d know better than to surround themselves with Chernobyl’s most toxic soil.

The “Red Forest” is so-called because the trees there turned red and died as the radiation burned them from the inside. They were then bulldozed into the soil, covered with sand, and more trees planted over the top. Apparently the forest got something like 400 times the Hiroshima dosage, which is why no Ukrainians go there.

The link has drone video showing that the Russian soldiers did go there, and dug trenches, and that video matches satellite pictures of the area.

As the Mayor of the nearby town of Slavutych said in an interview (it’s a town built to relocate residents of Pripyat, the now-radioactive town near the reactors):

It’s one thing when you’re [exposed to] external radiation. [When] there’s a source of radiation, you’re exposed, you leave, and then the body copes with it. When you’ve inhaled radioactive dust it’s a completely different story. Today, there’s even a saying that’s caught on here — I’ve adopted it myself: Russian troops left Chernobyl, but Chernobyl will never leave them. They’ve given their own soldiers a kiss of death.

It’s one more insight into the Russian military’s performance in their invasion: troops who don’t know much and just follow orders from leaders who don’t care about them. As one source who works at the plant told Reuters a few weeks ago about his conversation with Russian soldiers occupying the site:

“When they were asked if they knew about the 1986 catastrophe, the explosion of the fourth block (of the Chernobyl plant), they did not have a clue. They had no idea what kind of a facility they were at,” he said, claiming they were merely told that it was “critically important infrastructure.”

While it might seem crazy that young Russians in their twenties wouldn’t have heard of it it’s notable that the 2019 mini-series was not well-received in Russia at the time, with talk of a Russian alternative being made that would pin the blame for the disaster on the CIA. Nothing further has been heard of this series.

But given that mentality it’s entirely possible that such episodes probably aren’t spoken of in history class or on state television. So how would they know?

About the only good news is that the radiation perhaps is not as bad as thought because it’s been observed that wildlife in the area has filled the forest with even a European Bison spotted for the first time in 300 years in the area. Still, those animals don’t dig trenches into the soil.