A brilliant piece of journalism. I love how Operator Starsky has the same questions and natural responses we all do.......this is one the best channels on TH-cam.
Sadly, if/when he is hired in to a mainstream media outlet post war he will be silenced just like anyone who gets in the game. I have no doubt allot of folks on the big networks used to be genuine good people also. I wish him the best and am equally impressed as you stated. But the world in general is not going in a good direction fast as it should be considering how fast we are using up natural resources. If this mess doesn't get on track soon there is bound to be catastrophic war like this across the globe and with Nuclear weapons still being legal for certain countries we are destined to use them on each other eventually. Why can't political leaders truly work for all of mankind with their great power?
@@MuffinManUSN you covered alot of topics in that statement. I'm sure Operator Starsky will want to just get on with his life after this is over...still it would cool if he kept us informed about ukraine during the rebuilding.
I worked at a shipyard in the 1990s on the USS Enterprise overhaul. They were removing some radioactive materials that contained radioactive water It leaked onto the pavement.They had to send in a special team to dig up every section of pavement that the radioactive material touched. Radioactive material is no joke.
That seems like a gross over reaction... yes, you need to be respectful to the possible dangers, but the amount of radioisotopes in cooling water is very low relative to the actual fuel itself. Short of there being damage to the reactor fuel, you'd be looking at tritium as the primary radiation source from cooling water alone and generally there isn't enough of it made to be a real concern to public health. Most people get exposed to more tritium from watches, night sights for firearms, and emergency exit signs than you would have from that. But, hey, sometimes it's easier to just tear out the concrete so people don't have adverse reactions to things they don't understand. Peace of mind, sort of stuff.
@Malcolm Caden they won't find it here. Not the ones that would care anyway. They are censored and directed to choice media on their networks se as we are in the US
I’ve been wondering about this since the Russians lost control of it. Thanks Starsky. That general that ran the plant for that whole time was a piece of trash. Glad you guys got it back. Stay sane boss man and watch out for those “good” 😉 Russians. Stay safe buddy💪🏼🇺🇦✌🏼
Good idea. I once sent a story to the Darwin Awards, it was turned down - somehow I believe that the Russian army might actually make it. I think I'll send the story to them.
@@Whistlewalk All criteria exept that I think Darwin Awards exclude both war and being drunk. So perhaps no Darwin Award to them anyway. "Sorry, Russians, you might have to try even harder." But I must say they certainly try their best to get the award.
Fun fact: During russian retreat from Chernobyl they took their radioactive selves, trucks, tanks, and equipment back to Belarus contaminating their bases.
For the people who sent the first person into space, they have really gone backward with their intelligence… thanks for your reports! Stay safe and we all hope that it will all end soon!
The answer is simple: Mr. Korolyov, who sent the first person into the space, was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. Soviet Union was so successful only cause Ukrainians were part of it.
The Vostok capsule was not finished when Gagarin went into space, the parachutes didnt work and so Gagarin had to wait to be 6-7km from the ground and open the hatch to jump and deploy an individual parachute.
As always, thank you for the “down-to-earth” updates/reporting!! Straight to the point, mail the points I’m curious to know!! Stay safe out there; and keep those posts coming!!
For those who do not know: The plant is no longer producing energy but the systems of the plant still need to run for several years after. This is needed for the radioactive matierials in the reactor to decay and to cool off the exhausted nuclear fuel. A crew needs to check on all systems round the clock and needs to do maintenance. The amount of workers is lower than during full operation, but there still need to be a lot of staff.
“Dig deeper!” 😂 Thank you Operator Starsky for all of your updates! I was so happy to hear you on The Enforcer the other evening! Continued prayers of safety for you and all of Ukraine! Much love from Louisiana! 🇺🇸
Omg, I LOVE that the one worker was like, “Yeah, dig deeper. And be sure to hide all your vehicles and equipment in there, too!” Pure (radioactive) gold!!!! 🤣🤣🤣
This is what happens when your leaders are living in an alternate reality, they keep on preaching the glorious Soviet times while failing to acknowledge their mistakes and now their own forces suffer because of ignorance. They left Chernobyl but Chernobyl will stay with them. Thank you for these reports, hopefully pieces like these will inform more people why Chernobyl is called the Zone of Alienation.
That there are people in Russia that apparently never heard of Chernobyl tells you that the accident (which is engraved in my mind since 1986) is not talked about in Russia as it probably is not aligned with the vision of ‘the good old soviet times, when Russia was great’. Unbelievable…
It's a strange logic you apply here. Only because it's engraved in your mind doesn't mean other people should know about it. And why would all people in Russia should know about something that happened more than 30 years ago? The older generations surely know. The younger generations were not even born then / have other interests. Do all people in your country / the Western countries know about it?
ruZZian people are stuck in their schizophrenia. They worship the USSR but when the talk comes to the evil side of that regime they immediately say things like "Stalin was Georgian", despite it was all ruSSians who were in leading positions. Talk about the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 - they'll spin like it was teh Warsaw Pact responsible for it and they refuse to apologize. Again, the Warsaw pact was just another group of vassal states enslaved by evil ruSSia. When the tragedy in Chernobyl happened - people in the Ost Bloc learned about it DAYS later because all governments were shitting themselves and waited until Moscow says something. Moscow didn't want to admit what happened but had to budge once there was too much information coming from the free world via Radio Free Europe or BBC.
Yes I think you are correct. I read an interview with a local ( must have worked at the plant) . He said he asked the ordinary soldiers if they knew where they where and the history. And they ALL ( young 20-30 yr olds) said they had NEVER heard of Chernobyl before they arrived, had NEVER heard about the disaster, never learned about it at school( !!!!!!!! ) and had no idea how dangerous digging trenches in the forest could be. He said he could not believe they could have been so ignorant. Well they know now as people have become ill ( we don't know if they have died as the Russians will NEVER tell us) imagine all that contaminated equipment , people , clothing all,going back into Russia and being the silent killer in on their own soil.
My wife is Ukrainian and she arranged for me a private tour of Chornobyl. We went into a few places you were not supposed to go and our dosimeters went absolutely nuts. I can't even imagine the insanity of telling troops to dig there and the insanity of following those orders.
@@dewfree5869 To be honest the levels they got likely aren't that high and likely less than an air crew received in 1 year of normal duties in the air. Discussions about these topics are often hugely overexaggerated and there is almost no place outside in Chernobyl that would lead to any type of acute radiation sickness. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I want to see dosage readings in the area of clearly over 100 millisieverts.
Most people without the specific medical and scientific training to understand radiation and it's health risks cannot assess how much risk they might be in. I'm guessing that also includes you.
yo Operator Starsky! I hope youre as good as the situation allows you to be. Greetings from Finland, its a tough job, personally i cant even imagine how it is there in the battlefield, but youre doing it for the right reason, just like my forefathers did in 1939-1940 and again from 1941 to 1944. There are no words powerful enough to describe what Ukraine is doing right now! All of the nordic/transatlantic people are rooting for you guys!! Give em hell!! Fight for freedom!!! SLAVA UKRAINI!!!
The first thing I heard after the invasion is that they took control of Chernobyl. Who in their right minds takes control of Chernobyl? That's when I knew they had absolutely no idea of what they were doing.
The Ukrainians actually anticipated that before the invasion started that the Russians would come trough there and had set up a defensive line forcing the Russians to establish a presence in the contaminated zone
Taking the area was one thing, but when they started digging trenches they were off their rocker. When the rain comes it washes the radioactive dust off the pavement, into the dirt, where it settles. You're fine around there honesty. Just stay on the pavement.
And yea those animals might create a false sense of safety but they only live for 5-7 years. If they cause enough cellular damage to inflict a ton of cancer a decade from now, they'll be dead from other causes before that's a factor.
You ask me, it's a decision from the higher-ups to gain a position that it could be a nightmare to start a conflict in. You start a military situation around the plant and you risk *a lot* going wrong. If they manage to maintain this position, it's a very strong foothold, until all their soldiers get cancer
@@StarskyUA I think you were a HUGE hit on The Enforcer livestream the other night! Much success to you in the future! And many thanks and congrats on your part in that successful fund raiser too!!!
No. Many of those soldiers are victims too. They are sons and fathers. Many don't want to be there. There are also soldiers doing unspeakably bad things. The workers on the ground should be able to see difference. That general should be fed the soil that he's making his troops dig in. (It's difficult to believe that a general took Chernobyl simply because he wanted a safe headquarters. But then again, there's no reason that would make any sense.)
@@brianwest2775 look from their point of view: it wasn't the general keeping them hostage, keeping guard outside of their livong quarters, ensuring they can't escape etc. It was all those "victims". Sure you gotta see the difference but it's not like they aren't guilty at all.
We're from the opposite side of the planet, furthest from Chernobyl, and yet we know enough to never to mess with it if we get the chance to travel. It blew up more than 35 years ago and there has been countless documentaries and news features about it almost every year. I guess news and facts do not travel well in Russia.
Remember that those in the Russian army are not the brightest nor the most educated Russians, not even near... they really are cannon fodder from poorer peripheral areas (so mothers don't make much noise when they die) and dumb enough to sign the contract.
No guarantee every Orc in that herde knew exactly where they were. Good chance they did with all the markings that are up around the area. But there are still people that live in that 1000 square mile zone to this day.
Most of chernobyl is safe enough to be in for weeks to months but then there are places like the reactor and the red forest that are extremely radioactive
For all those wondering how the Russian soldiers could be so completely ignorant of the dangers in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, you have to understand how Russia (and the USSR) operates. We in the West, know about the extent of the Chernobyl disaster because we have no reason not to know about it or talk about it. But remember, this occurred in 1986 during the decline of the Soviet Union. The disaster was an absolute embarrassment for the soviet government. And like any good oppressive communist government, you never tell your people about your government's failures. The extent of the Chernobyl disaster was minimized and covered up in the soviet era to protect the incompetent government. The Soviet Union may have collapsed in 1991, but its text books and teaching curricula continue to live on in post-soviet Russia. If you understand that, it's not at all hard to understand why poorly-educated, mostly rural and impoverished, Russian conscripts educated by pro-soviet teachers would not know much, if anything at all, about the dangers surrounding the Chernobyl reactor site. It was conveniently (for the government) and inconveniently (for these soldiers) deleted from their history books. (Proof that what you don't know CAN kill you.)
First of all, i,m against of Russia invading Ukraine, but sorry, you’re wrong. I’m from east Europe which was still occupied in 1986. Soviet Union was alerting the rest of the world in Vienna, but west downplayed the thread. I remember when i was a kid, getting iodine pills at school with lunch from the government as a countermeasure. They knew and didn't lie about it. We all know about Chernobyl.
Highly doubt that's the case (I'm a Lithuanian who remembers 1986, even though I was just a kid). Yes, USSR downplayed the disaster dramatically in the beginning, but later it was one of the major reasons leading to the fall of this bloody empire. I would speculate these kids did not know about it not because they were not told about it in school or whatever, but because they didn't know much about anything. This army was conscripted of mostly ethnic minorities (of which there are a lot in RF), underprivileged men (who probably struggled in school and never went for higher education) from remote regions and little known autonomous republics of this fascist empire. These people were murdering pensioners for their old washing machines, what knowledge should we expect from them? I would also speculate many of them did not know what Kyiv or Lviv were, tbh. BTW, not to defend ruskies, but there are such unbelievably ignorant people everywhere and often in bigger numbers that we tend to admit :(
@@polystirenman1 "The Soviet Union was alerting the rest of the world in Vienna"?... really?... where did you get that? It is a well known fact admitted by Gorbachev that Sweden had detected nuclear fallout and approached the Russians with absolute proof asking what was going on and where? It was ONLY at this time that Gorbachev admitted the truth. . The plot gets thicker - or should I say sicker. . The west had detected that the Russians were giving people in the Soviet Union iodine. That story leaked out and it was obvious this was related to nuclear fallout. When Gorbachev was approached on this intelligence - he did what the Russians were good at doing denied and lied. Only when Swedish nuclear alarms began ringing did the world start to realize this was a huge issue for the world at large. And then nuclear alarms started ringing all throughout Europe - the world was on edge and Gorbachev finally admitted to his lies in an attempt to calm down the world - we had no idea what had truly happened and we were beginning to fear even worse things. Reluctantly Russia allowed transparency only when Europe threatened serious reaction to and ever growing radioactive cloud spreading across Europe. . To say, the "Soviet Union was alerting the rest of the world" could not be further from the truth. In South Africa we were getting news reports of a Radioactive cloud emanating from the Soviet Union and watching experts trying to analyse what they thought it could be while Europeans were starting to fly down to South Africa to escape what they thought was the beginning of the end of the world. It was truly scary stuff. Watching politicians contacting their respective Soviet embassies and watching President Reagan threaten Russia if they did not come clean. . Truly a ghastly evil nation for how they handled that situation. . I will never forget that experience, and to hear some Russian troll describe it as Russia being the hero is truly dispicable.
they downplayed it in 91... but the whole of europe knew what went down. and people in that part of the world know history a little better then other parts of the world and for them not to know this since the begenning of the internet... its not like chernobyl was in south africa.. was literally few hundreads of metres from them.
@@polystirenman1 i can smell the rubles in this comment 😂😂you(ussr) literally lied to The entire world and Russia still continues to lie to their own citizens abt the reality of it to this day💀
I was skeptical when I first heard about Russians getting sick. I thought that maybe tracked vehicles kicked up some dirt that they breathed in. What they did was beyond anything I imagined.
Hello from Canada. Never thought in a million years we'd be living in such a fucked up world. i feel this way because there are people who are actually supportive of what Russia is doing in your country. I sincerely hope you can enjoy that bottle of whiskey and am looing forward to raising a victory drink with you in spirit love, laughter, and freedom. Stay safe
Us humans will always act like this, it will never change. If you're talking about living in a fucked up world be glad you weren't born 400 years ago now that was fucked up.
Trying to rationalize this General's thinking... he was smart enough to know Chernoble wouldn't be bombed... but not smart enough to keep his troops from digging their own graves? If I didn't know better, I'd say this General sabotaged his own battalion.
I can’t feel sorry for them. They have created their own mess. Everyone knows that no one was to be there for at least 50 years. They would capture it to be “safe”, 😂 but instead they looked stupid to the rest of the world. Forever Ukraine 🇺🇦
Who knows? Perhaps they are so impoverished financially that their black and white TV just shows replays of 1945 🤷♀️? They never got the news that this is 2022 and invading toxic wasteland is no longer cool, go figure!
The soldiers didn't know, they weren't told, and thusly weren't equipped properly to take a nuclear power facility let alone one as infamous as this. I do feel sorry for them. Those that were giving the orders, nope.
It worse than when Trump told the American people to inject bleach to kill Covid. I think there were some people hospitalised for ingesting disinfectant and shit.
I think in part because the invader wanted actual combat experience in a radioactive environment. not an accident or an over-sight, they were human guinea pigs.
Nah, they did plenty of that back in Soviet times. Just like every single nuclear power did. This is a case of reckless leadership and ignorant personell. That general knew exactly what was going on but he deemed the safety of his HQ from Ukrainian attacks more important than the safety of all of his soldiers. Its the story of this Russian war, isnt it? The ordinary Russian conscript counts as little as a Ukrainian life to the Russian government and military leadership.
@@johncarroll7585 This is not exactly true. It is a game of jenga - radiation kick out bricks from your organism, the more radiation the more bricks missing. However individual luck is heavily involved. Well if large dose then of course your jenga is on fire.
Thank you, Operator Starsky. I had wondered why the Russians would want to occupy what is probably the deadliest place on earth. Your answer to this question makes perfect sense. The Russians were more interested in their officers, and supplies and they cared nothing for their troops. This is the answer to this question, and it explains why the Russians are losing. No planning, no logistics, no civility, NO morality, and NO regard for any human life. I hope that the Russian officers dug deeper than the enlisted men. I am an American, and I now regard Ukraine as our sister country. Victory and glory to Ukraine! May God protect and keep President Zelinskyy. I will be watching your channel. Jim
Yes, he couldn't invent better lie. Have you seen any trench dug by Russian there, don't you think whole world media would show it all the time if it existed? Russians went there because they didn't want to be acused of releasing radioactive materials so thank them for this. I'll pay you 1000eur for good proof of what this agent who can't write Chetnobyl said.
@@codaalive5076 1. There are plenty of videos of Russian digging at Chernobyl on TH-cam. A 3 second search isn't that hard. Here's one for you: th-cam.com/video/frIe7gk7jRI/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=TheSun 2. The Russians set up at Chernobyl because they knew Ukraine wouldn't shell them there. 3. If you're going to criticize someone's spelling of Chernobyl, make sure you don't misspell it yourself. Don't type something wrong like "Chetnobyl" for example. You'll look stupid. This must be your first day on TH-cam Russian Stooge duty.
Pretty sure the entire Russian invasion of Ukraine will be known to history as 'Operation Dumbass". This being one of the lowlights. An entire battalion group just got themselves blown up trying to cross a river as well, a truly amazing feat only the Russians could pull off.
That is a brilliant name for it! It really fits. Putin is trying to use 19th Century tactics while the Ukrainians use 21st Century tactics. Keep feeding the Ukrainians the weapons and watch Russia disintegrate.
@N Fels To lose that many men and vehicles in one fire mission means they were grouped in a way that was militarily unsound. Modern armies are able to coordinate these kinds of maneuvers without losing entire echelons. Russian command from the top down is incompetent to the point of disaster. That includes command digging its men into soil that is highly radioactive and will kill many of them at the dose rate they received. The entire operation is based on totally asinine assumptions like Ukraine is run by Nazis, it isn't. We know from election results that less than 2% of Ukrainian voters supported far right parties in the last elections. Or that NATO is a threat to Russia, the only way it would be is if Russia attacks a NATO nation and triggers Article Five. Or that all Putin had to do was invade Ukraine and the government, the army and the entire Ukrainian people would collapse like a house of cards and he could simply add them all to Russia. "Operation Dumbass" is a vast understatement of how idiotic Putin's entire approach to Ukraine and all his neighbours is. Not only has he failed utterly in Ukraine, he completely revitalized NATO which will probably have two new members as Finland and Sweden will announce in two days their decisions to join NATO.
Sir I've been watching you since day one. You are a highly intelligent, extremely honorable man. Please let your colleagues know we are praying for your safe return to your families. The bravery and patriotism of your people is admirable and fascinating. May God watch over you all
Thank you for the update on this matter- I can sleep a lot better knowing it’s in safe hands… and everything else. Your reporting has been amazing please keep it up and please please please stay safe- kick ass and give them hell.
Thank you for this interesting report, Operator Starsky, yes - I couldn’t believe it when I first heard about the Russian soldiers digging trenches, really crazy! Slava Ukraini!🇺🇦
Starsky ! Thank you, i was following this weird story when it happend, i could not believe it back then. People in the Chernobyl plant were able to communicate with us on chat services. Thank you for attending the service and the background story behind it!
Love your channel/content since I can't understand Ukrainian language I'm really greatful for you keeping us English speaking people upto date. Respect and love to all Ukraine people defending their right to be free and saving the rest of Europe from that crazy little man! And his Orcs. God bless Ukraine from the UK ✌...
I have family there( in Ukraine).After sending the women and children to safety my cousin went to enlist.Havent heard from him since. Hope and pray 🙏 for peace. Keep yourself safe,Slava Heroyam!
After being told (by the staff) where they were, why didn't they use their phones to confirm their location and look up how dangerous it was? We know many of them had their phones with them.
At the time the Russians captured Chernobyl I asked, sarcastically: "Is this an experiment? Are the Russians trying to get their troops irradiated? Have they brought spiders?" because I assumed they were just being stupid. But this is a whole other level of depravity.
Soviet union secret service reported USA was building some Mutant by exposing people to radio activity...They reported also 1 Green giant. They even have some secret books of that time print with the title "Mutant" . One of the book was reported USA was able to have 4 turtles to become human like look and able to use Asian style fighting!! So yes it was a experiment to create a Russian mutant army!
One of the great advantages of having ignorant, uneducated troops (and citizens) is that the people in power can make them do all sorts of absolutely insane things without any fear of disobedience. Knowledge is power.
I can believe this all too easily, the mindset is scarier than the crazy actions , really great update and explanation of this occupation ! Victory to Ukraine!!! Stay safe 🇬🇧
Thank you so much for each and every video you put out. What a debacle is this war, I hope and pray for your safety and for you to keep up the good fight!
Dear Starsky, I have never before witnessed war from such an upclose and personal perspective as you have brought to us here. It makes me ashamed of the human race to see the terrible destruction and death poured on others for no reason other than incredible hubris. It makes me proud to see the strength of resistance and the courage of those attacked who stand and fight back. It makes me sad and outraged to see the huge numbers of people (in Russia as well as in the USA and other parts of the world) who have given up reality and rely entirely on lies and insanity told them by wannabe-leaders with self-serving agendas. It gives me hope to see people like you and your comrades not only standing up to evil but sharing the fight vicariously with those of us who cannot stand beside you. I want to say Thank you! in the strongest possible way and let you know just how much you are appreciated!!
All of Russia, US and other parts of the world have not given up reality and know when they are being lied to. Just as you are doing here. Telling lies. You say you can not stand beside them in this war. Many people including many Americans have gone there to fight along side . Just as you are able if you wore not a propagandist coward. I served my country for 6 years. You the propagandist coward is the type of person who gave me the reason to serve and rid the world of people like you who sit at in the comfort of home and pass judgement on others. May God protect the people of the world. In all countries!
It's awful that so many people prefer to be willfully ignorant of an inconvenient reality. The madness that overtook the USA has spread to Russia, where it originally came from. It's like they pretend to have blinders to the Putin personality Cult.
The soldiers being oblivious to the effects snd the history of that place is astoundingly concerning. It's even (somewhat) funny that some kid in highschool from other place would know better about radiation safety (or even just about Chornobyl) than that one guy who spent their time digging trenches in the Red Forest, wallowing in the sPiCyYy DuSt. It would be funny to think about, if it weren't tragic.
That's what happens when you live under an autocratic regime that indoctrinates the people to retain control. It's also why most Russians actually believe this invasion was the right thing to do...
Given the Soviet worship, I'm no longer surprised that they had no idea about one of the biggest failures of the Soviet Union. The craziest part of it all is that they still want to try to erase history.
The average Netflix subscriber even knows what caused the power plant to explode, that the government had to evacuate Pripyat and surrounding area because it was too radioactive, that the forest changed its color because of radioactive soil. I guess soldiers didn't watch the series, though Kinopoisk gave it highest score for a TV series.
You have to remember that the Chernobyl accident was largely covered up by the Russian media at the time, and is likely not referred to in school in Russia to this day. So rather a case of "you reap what you sow"
@@kymfernandez6855 It's not crazy dangerous anymore but I wouldn't be digging holes and sleeping in them. There are still fully operational reactors there and daily employees. Fortunately for the world, there wasn't an artillery duel churning up everything.
@AMechanicalSoul I bet the radiation sickness stories are propaganda. Yet I've never seen a modern army so slovenly. I bet they'll get typhus because the Russians seem incapable of digging a proper latrine. My NCOs would have skinned me alive for pooping in a fighting position 🤢
"Monument of death" 🖤 Thank you for this video! It helps me put the Chernobyl situation into perspective. I've been thinking about it since the beginning of the full scale invasion. Stay safe & thank you for your strength!🇺🇦💪 Я люблю тебе, Україно. 💙💛 I love you, Ukraine. 💙💛
I had read that the specialist radiation hospital in Belarus was full of Russian troops that were being treated for high level radiation sickness. Belarus was actually contaminated more than Ukraine as the wind blew across it those days at the end of April 1986 and it is just a short distance from the plant. They know radiation very well in Belarus. Belarus actually has a larger exclusion zone. I'm guessing that the Russians had no idea of the dangers as it was hidden during Soviet times and also as many of them probably never went far from their homes before the army.
We will probably never know how much suffering was caused by their miscalculation. You would think that every single soldier in that forest would be sick.
in scotland we sent aid to the people of Gomel, so we know about white russia and the nuclear disaster. Maybe rostov na donu and minsk don't know but I bet they do. Terrorist
@@cahoonm probably not, lots of the radioactivity decayed now, it's much less dangerous. It's not like it's instant death sentence. It really depends on what exactly they did. It would be helpful if someone went through the trenches with a Geiger counter to see how exactly they were exposed (I've seen in a video on a different channel "Plainly Difficult" that Ukrainians did do that but I don't know what results they got from that). Plus if they ate any hot spot dust or something... lots of those dangers might be very random. Even digging the tremches, they might've digged in one place that was exactly in the worst area of Red Forest, and several meters away it would be much safer because it was outside of the area of the dust fall. Or they could habe digged it in the border between two "tree graves" (where soil might've been "clean", taken from somewhere else or just from those deep areas) while some other soldiers digged into the tree grave and encountered actual radioactive trees and maybe even the extremely radioactive graphite reactor parts.
@@tymondabrowski12 They did after they left. You can find videos from news outlets online and the counters are going apeshit. It is true that a lot of the short halflife isotopes have decayed but the red / yellow forest is the mos contaminated part of the Ukrainian exclusion zone. They also buried a lot of soil from other areas there to "clean" them up. It is still highly radioactive there. They were cooking on wood fires with wood cut from the forest. Their food was contaminated, their clothing contaminated. They likely breathed in an ate loads of radioactive particles.
I never thought of it this way, but Chernonyl Zone itself also did its part to drive out the enemy, by passively unleashing its own special brand of WMD when the invaders dug deep trenches into its sacred poison soil. Even Chernobyl would rather be looked after by 🇺🇦, thank you very much.
This is my 1st time experiencing Operator Starsky and I'm a fan forever. Your sense of humour is wonderful as well as your English. Peace to you and please be safe.
I'm glad you answered this question. I was wondering about it the moment I heard that the plant had been captured. I'm not surprised that the Russian commander failed to mention anything of the dangers to his troops. Probably the troops were too young to know anything about what happened there already. Now, I'm sure they are still paying for it, assuming they are still alive.
@@TH-camcensoredmyusername Most of the fastest responding Chernobyl emergency workers died within six months of exposure. Some within a week. There is a statue to the three men who dove below the reactor to prevent an even worse explosion.
I adore the mural behind you, I love that it's celebrating Chornobyl's unexpected role as a wildlife preserve for takhi horses... making the best of a bad situation.
@@sk31370n They glow too bright to count them. The russians were there collecting their 💩to fuel new atomic powered personnel carriers or hand warmers I forgot which
Like all power stations there, Chernobyl has its own own railhead. (This is still important today for maintenance, plus there are still one or two working reactors in the district.) So the Ruzzians probably thought they would use the railways for long-distance travel for their tanks etc, as that’s how they transport the armoured vehicles across Russia. But the Ukrainians disabled vital railtracks & systems in front of the advance. This kind of precaution is why that giant convoy had to drive all the way from the border to Kyiv and ran out of fuel.
@@kjj26k, I was talking about the latter statement of “the convoy ran out of fuel,” not about some of the reasons for taking it. However, the most obvious reason is that Russia wanted to ensure the facility’s safety from Ukrainian partisan activities by securing the facility and the surrounding area. If the Ukrainians sabotaged the facility while Russia was moving through the area, which would have exposed the entire force to high radiation levels as well as potentially harm Belarusian and Ukrainian civilians. So, securing the facility with a company of troops was seen as important.
@@kjj26k, I would think “securing a facility that could release lethal levels of radiation across a wide area” would be intuitive enough of an explanation, but apparently it isn’t. It’s also telling that the Russians did not disturb any of the equipment nor radioactive samples in the research laboratories. As for the allegations of trenches being dug in some areas, I have yet to see substantial proof of it and, even if they were dug, the amount of radiation in the soil is not going to be anywhere near lethal dosages, especially after ~36 years. Much of the radioactive cesium isotopes will be locked up in the trees and living matter rather than in the soil, since Cesium 137 acts similar to Potassium and is absorbed from the soil by trees. Additionally, over half of the Cesium 137 originally released in 1986 has decayed down to non-radioactive elements, reducing the overall radioactivity in the region. So, it’s not too dangerous to dig into the soil near Chernobyl now-a-days as it was thirty years ago and, as long as radiation equipment was on hand for the Russian soldiers and dust was kept at a minimum, it shouldn’t pose much of a risk.
@@MatthewChenault Blowing up Chernobyl to expose the Russian troops with high radiation would have polluted Ukraine for hundreds of years. You say you have to see proof of the Russians digging trenches in radioactive soil . Well I suggest you look for the hundreds of videos readily available. It bothers me when people like you have a wild fantasy or simply follow Russian propaganda, because everything from the West must be bad and Russia must be good. There is no justification for this war, there was no justification for taking Krimea in 2014. It's all made up fantasies, like all that crap you wrote above.
Ever-grateful for you and your remarkable reporting! You always shed so much information and with such a gentle and delightful manner! Thank you countless times for you! Please stay safe my friend! 🙌🙇♂️🙇♂️👏👏
Thank you for covering this. I was dumbfounded when I heard what the Russians were doing there. I am currently reading the book "Chernobyl Prayer" by Svetlana Alexievich which tells the stories of the people who lived through the disaster in 1986.
Hi Starsky, can you tell us more about the complete obliteration of a Russian platoon, by the Ukrainian army, attempting to cross a river with pontoon bridge?
I listened to your cast with times radio at one point you said you try to find interesting things to talk about. Every thing that’s going on over there is interesting & important. Keep up the good work & stay safe 🫡🇺🇦
For the officers to know of the dangers and not protect their troops shows real animosity and contempt. For the troops to have never heard of Chernobyl shows a failure in Russian education. It's as if Russia has a Napoleonic War era ethic in its officer corps. 🤦
@@charlesjenner1951 I wrote "era", and the topic is Russia. Thus Russian armies in that era, who were led by aristocrats who saw their troops as expendible. Jeez! (But even Napoleon, especially later, would send his troops into the maw of grapeshot rather than manoeuvre; and most of the French soldiers were commanded by lesser generals.)
We have a saying in Sweden which feels very right when it comes to the russians digging in the forest. "If the head is weak the body suffers" =If your dumb you will suffer
Three points I'd like to mention here. 1. The Russian General decided that Chernobyl would make an optimal base for granting him safety in a neutral zone. However he allowed his soldiers to dig trenches and live in the highly radioactive exclusion zone. An Army General would have full knowledge of the Russian Army's involvement in decontaminating the region in the mid to late 80's. He knew... 2. The Russian soldiers' limited or oblivious nature of the Chernobyl disaster could be the result of Russia's history of refusing to admit to failures which could also influence their education system and state media coverage of the event. In the US we were taught about our historical accomplishments and our failures and also the scandals (Iran-Contra trade, Bay of Pigs battle, Mi Lai masacre are examples in a military standpoint). I could imagine that a history lesson in an impoverished Russian town would only teach the glorious accomplishments of the USSR and the now Putin Federation while blaming any faults on either the WWII Nazis or the West. 3. Radiation exposure is a scary, invisible and long-term killer. It would be hard to determine the exposure levels each solider received but if they received burns and were vomitting then they could have 2 - 6 weeks to live depending on treatment. Others may not show symptoms but could develop cancers in the future and their offspring could also be born with defects or diseases carried attributed to the damaged paternal DNA. It's sad. all of this.
Kudos to the reactor worker that told them to dig deeper! You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out that they had occupied and dug in in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. A part of me wonders how they don't know about it. I mean I understand that Russia controls information that gets to the General public and their military evidently. But another part of me is like what the hell you don't know about the Chernobyl disaster? Have you been living completely entombed under a rock? There was a time when I would have said I feel bad for the troops. That was about 3 months ago. Now I just feel like they got what they deserved. I also wonder how many of the sheeple troops have severe radiation poisoning or will get cancer as a result. And then their government will just let them die.
@@Masonicbrother if you think about how Putin loves the Soviet Union and wants to bring it back, I would expect that the Soviets that are running Russia would have blocked that miniseries because of the way it portrays Soviet communism. But I agree with you really you haven't seen the miniseries or heard of Chernobyl?
@@Masonicbrother russia made their own version if i recall correctly. still. the troops may have been from far east and never talked about it - or radiation in general.
It's great to see you guys being able to walk about with a little freedom so close to the orcs border without bullet proff vests etc slava Ukraine, also glory to the defenders of Ukraine azov warriors to the last true hero's.
I can't remember when someone for whom English is a 2nd language has ever made me laugh SO hard by their use of sarcasm. Example - "...[Chernobyl], the place where Russian forces achieved their biggest victory over the mind of a human" LOL!!!
I hope that Ukraine officials are checking captured/destroyed Russian tanks and equipment (and enemy soldiers too I guess) that might have been in trenches etc at Chernobyl to ensure theres no danger for (eg) Ukrainian soldiers re-using the equipment...
That is also a good question I was going to ask, maybe they were going to use the sand bags and soldiers irradiated as some kind of sick ploy or trick to kill the Ukraine president? I wouldn't be surprised by that level decent and evil.
I think telling the soldiers to dig deeper may actually be a honest advice, because the radioactivity is in the top centimetres. So filling sand bags with material dug out deeper is a valid advice.
Certainly in the Red Forest where the Soviet Union left it mostly undisturbed. Around the plant and in other areas where the Soviets buried the top layer of dirt? Digging deeper would be a mistake. I personally wouldn't want to dig in either place, and I have a fairly reasonable understanding of the dangers of radiation from the accident.
It's a time limited area in general. Due to radiation level and there are small pieces of reactor graphite still lying around. Spending a month there in trenches?... th-cam.com/video/ejZyDvtX85Y/w-d-xo.html
I imagine the radiation will have leached deeper down that just the top soil. Whatever the physics of the situation, for Putin's general to 'hide' in a irradiated power plant considering 'safe' as the Ukranians wouldn't bomb it, shows how ilinformed even the top military leaders are about what happens in the world beyond the Russian border.
Thanks for this fascinating look into this part of the war! I... am lost for words. I get the general's reason to pick that place, but still, there's still a lot of shit there that will fuck those Russians up, even if they move back home.
Operator Starsky, your channel is one of the best on YT. You provide answers to some of the same questions as many of us are asking ourselves. Excellent work, the editing is on point and the use of clips such as SpongeBob always seem to fit right in. Will you continue to work in journalism after Ukraine destroys Russia?
Hi, When I first learned that Russian soldiers were fooled by their generals, “blindfolded and herded like sheep” by their own generals into Chernobyl, forced to dig trenches in the contaminated soil, having no idea about, what an extremely dangerous situation not only they were forced into, but also those who safeguarding the reactors, and as you say Operator Starsky “when they left in their vehicles they brought with them all of the highly contaminated soil and that’s a real problem and danger for many people, animals and countries. I can’t fathom why RF doesn’t put everything “on the table” - if they had been honest with their soldiers and explained in advance why and how, I can only assume they would have had, in return a much better informed military force, but Kremlin avoid everything that could possibly include the word moral….. This Chernobyl situation was disturbing and a real threat. I honestly struggle really hard to comprehend everything that is happening in Ukraine, I don’t have word to describe the horror, brutality RF forces you all to go through. (and, me writing about the Chernobyl 👆 is under no circumstances an excuse for the painful, tragic, traumatic war RF have forced upon everyone in Ukraine, Ukraine a sovereign country, there’s no excuse today, not tomorrow, no never. Thank you Operator Starsky for keeping us updated and informed. It’s very appreciated 🙏 My heart and soul is in 🇺🇦 With kindness and respect, Grace #СлаваУкраїні 💙💛🇺🇦🫶
@@Org80 The Soviets used tank destroyers (WW2 short-barreled tanks) to blast holes in the reactor buildings. They were left abandoned around the site. Too radiated to scrap.
@@Org80 yes I’m actually pretty well oriented about the Chernobyl situation. What happened back then and all the learning that have been taught and the adjustment to the danger of the contamination have progressed, that’s why I find it sickening that Generals herded their soldiers into the Chernobyl area. I wish you a happy day 🙏
@@dollarcostbackpacker1226 Hi I feel like you write what you wrote because you could 🙃. I’m pretty confident that you know exactly what I mean, and what my intentions for writing it was as well. It doesn’t require a master in rocket science to understand the importance of information and how access to information is crucial for our ability to make as good decision as possible, and access to information applies to the military and beyond the military. It’s normal that I wrote about “well informed military” in this particular text. Reliable and relevant information helps us grow, ask question, and to think independently. I wish you a great weekend, filled with happiness and kindness🔆 With kindness and respect, Grace
I was in the middle of sipping my ice cold drink when you mentioned for the Russian Soldiers to dig deeper. As you can imagine my cold drink went everywhere from sudden laughing. Totally worth it!
I recently watched the HBO mini-docuseries on Chernobyl called "Chernobyl ". After watching that and the levels of deceit and propaganda the Soviets used, I'm not the least bit surprised by their stupidity at Chernobyl 36 years later. They went so far as to kill phone lines and close all exits so people couldn't leave back then so they could control the population with propaganda. Ukraine HAS to win this war that they didn't ask for. Going back to the days where information is so controlled that the population can't learn from history means they're doomed to repeat it.
“Cherenobyl” wasn’t a documentary and its rich to hear you call people stupid if you think it is. It dramaticized and condenses events, creates and eliminates while charactwrs and parts of the narrative to make an interesting show. Also, it rly pushes the idea of the USSR trying to cover it up when in reality it was more like nobody when what to do because it hadn’t happened before
@@N1tr063nFr05trhym3 that's not what I meant but Putin was in the KGB and uses many of the same tactics of deceit and propaganda. Not much has changed.
@@xhg7a I didn't call anyone stupid. If you read, I said the stupidity... Any legitimate source on the matter reported on the Soviet Union trying to cover up the events at Chernobyl. The series was a dramatization of the events and at the time I wrote the comment, I wasn't sure what to call it. But either way, it presented facts that allow us to learn from history. Also, something similar had actually ALMOST happened in the US several years prior at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The US nearly completely bungled that response. If the USSR hadn't tried so hard to cover it up, they could have gotten help from the US.
Thank you for sharing what's happening it's important that the world know exactly what's happening I applaud your bravery as well as that if the Ukrainian people and stand behind you 💯
"You can't make this shit up!" Famous Quote - Slava Ukraini! 💛💛💙💙
Thank you for keeping us up to date, Starsky! Always keep your good humor! Support from California, USA
🇺🇸🇺🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦
The World - "Nobody is stupid enough to dig in near Chernobyl"
Russia - "Hold my Vodka"
😂👍🏼
Correction:
Russia- Drink bottle of Vodka
@@Zeph_ After it has been nicely "chilled" in Chornobyl soil!
🤣❤
Class!!
"I told them to dig deeper."
I love that guy!
Thanks for the report, Operator Statsky 💛💙
A brilliant piece of journalism. I love how Operator Starsky has the same questions and natural responses we all do.......this is one the best channels on TH-cam.
Sadly, if/when he is hired in to a mainstream media outlet post war he will be silenced just like anyone who gets in the game. I have no doubt allot of folks on the big networks used to be genuine good people also. I wish him the best and am equally impressed as you stated. But the world in general is not going in a good direction fast as it should be considering how fast we are using up natural resources.
If this mess doesn't get on track soon there is bound to be catastrophic war like this across the globe and with Nuclear weapons still being legal for certain countries we are destined to use them on each other eventually.
Why can't political leaders truly work for all of mankind with their great power?
@@MuffinManUSN you covered alot of topics in that statement. I'm sure Operator Starsky will want to just get on with his life after this is over...still it would cool if he kept us informed about ukraine during the rebuilding.
Yes, thanks Starsky for your brilliant reporting. The world needs to know the truth about this illegal war.
I worked at a shipyard in the 1990s on the USS Enterprise overhaul. They were removing some radioactive materials that contained radioactive water It leaked onto the pavement.They had to send in a special team to dig up every section of pavement that the radioactive material touched. Radioactive material is no joke.
Sure isn't. Hope all were safe. No way to die.
That seems like a gross over reaction... yes, you need to be respectful to the possible dangers, but the amount of radioisotopes in cooling water is very low relative to the actual fuel itself. Short of there being damage to the reactor fuel, you'd be looking at tritium as the primary radiation source from cooling water alone and generally there isn't enough of it made to be a real concern to public health. Most people get exposed to more tritium from watches, night sights for firearms, and emergency exit signs than you would have from that.
But, hey, sometimes it's easier to just tear out the concrete so people don't have adverse reactions to things they don't understand. Peace of mind, sort of stuff.
@@Whiskey11Gaming good input
@Malcolm Caden they won't find it here. Not the ones that would care anyway. They are censored and directed to choice media on their networks se as we are in the US
My uncle was on the Enterprise in the 70s, as a nuclear engineer!
I’ve been wondering about this since the Russians lost control of it. Thanks Starsky. That general that ran the plant for that whole time was a piece of trash. Glad you guys got it back. Stay sane boss man and watch out for those “good” 😉 Russians. Stay safe buddy💪🏼🇺🇦✌🏼
They deserve a collective Darwin Award for this.
i believe russia is the long time record holder for darwin awards
Good idea. I once sent a story to the Darwin Awards, it was turned down - somehow I believe that the Russian army might actually make it. I think I'll send the story to them.
Let's hope we all don't get nuked off of this s***. It won't matter to me I live at ground zero, I'll never know.
Oh yah. This war meets ALL the criteria.
@@Whistlewalk All criteria exept that I think Darwin Awards exclude both war and being drunk. So perhaps no Darwin Award to them anyway. "Sorry, Russians, you might have to try even harder." But I must say they certainly try their best to get the award.
Fun fact: During russian retreat from Chernobyl they took their radioactive selves, trucks, tanks, and equipment back to Belarus contaminating their bases.
Do you know that their shits n urines are also radioactive? I know this from a medical perspective. 🤣
Good...let them contaminate away, doing the world a huge favor.
When will Belarus learn to never trust Russian... 'ideas', 'plans' or 'strategies'
??
Source: trust me bro?
@@luden1577 they had to go somewhere 😂😂you should be happy it wasn’t the grave
For the people who sent the first person into space, they have really gone backward with their intelligence… thanks for your reports! Stay safe and we all hope that it will all end soon!
The answer is simple: Mr. Korolyov, who sent the first person into the space, was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. Soviet Union was so successful only cause Ukrainians were part of it.
@@StarskyUA It’s become glaringly obvious who the brains of the operation in the USSR were.
@@StarskyUA That and their reliance on Nazi scientists.
@@StarskyUA The plot thickens!
The Vostok capsule was not finished when Gagarin went into space, the parachutes didnt work and so Gagarin had to wait to be 6-7km from the ground and open the hatch to jump and deploy an individual parachute.
Idiots dug trenches in the radioactive hotspots. That's where most of the radioactive isotopes are, in the soil
Thank you for your report, Operator Starsky!
As always, thank you for the “down-to-earth” updates/reporting!! Straight to the point, mail the points I’m curious to know!! Stay safe out there; and keep those posts coming!!
For those who do not know: The plant is no longer producing energy but the systems of the plant still need to run for several years after. This is needed for the radioactive matierials in the reactor to decay and to cool off the exhausted nuclear fuel. A crew needs to check on all systems round the clock and needs to do maintenance. The amount of workers is lower than during full operation, but there still need to be a lot of staff.
I didn't know that, thanks for the info. Also slava Ukraini 🇺🇦
Are you sure about that? There are other reactors there that were not damaged by the '86 event.
That power plant is radioactive for almost 100 years. So needs a lot of maintenance
@@bartofilms the other reactors ran until 1999, then they stopped producing electricity for the grid.
It says on Wikipedia that the decommissioning will be complete by around 2065, according to the estimated schedule. Takes quite a bit of time.
That was the most superior fun for a graduate of Radiation Biophysics Dept. of MEPhI to see those russian trenches in the Red Forrest :))))
Absolutely insane.
Hello There
@@simuyamaha12sl My mind read that as Obi Wan Kenobi.
@@DustyGamma which is the only acceptable way to read it
Be careful Starsky. Stay safe, you and your comrades. We don't want either of you to be harmed. Much love ❤
colleagues, the european term. or 'co workers' if you're an american div
dirty soviet commie word , soviets starved and stole from ukraine
@@bluecheesehasmoldinit all cheese is mold haha but same it must mean multiple things around the world
“Dig deeper!” 😂 Thank you Operator Starsky for all of your updates! I was so happy to hear you on The Enforcer the other evening! Continued prayers of safety for you and all of Ukraine! Much love from Louisiana! 🇺🇸
And if they had dug deep enough, maybe they would have woken the Balrog. ;-)
Omg, I LOVE that the one worker was like, “Yeah, dig deeper. And be sure to hide all your vehicles and equipment in there, too!” Pure (radioactive) gold!!!! 🤣🤣🤣
This is what happens when your leaders are living in an alternate reality, they keep on preaching the glorious Soviet times while failing to acknowledge their mistakes and now their own forces suffer because of ignorance.
They left Chernobyl but Chernobyl will stay with them.
Thank you for these reports, hopefully pieces like these will inform more people why Chernobyl is called the Zone of Alienation.
Can we vote for Chernobyl being the MVP of the war for Ukraine war with Russia?
Thus the gift of Chernobyl, "What is the cost of lies?"
That there are people in Russia that apparently never heard of Chernobyl tells you that the accident (which is engraved in my mind since 1986) is not talked about in Russia as it probably is not aligned with the vision of ‘the good old soviet times, when Russia was great’. Unbelievable…
De-Putinize would not only be better but also necessary.
Soviet reactor never have accident, comrade.
It's a strange logic you apply here. Only because it's engraved in your mind doesn't mean other people should know about it. And why would all people in Russia should know about something that happened more than 30 years ago? The older generations surely know. The younger generations were not even born then / have other interests. Do all people in your country / the Western countries know about it?
ruZZian people are stuck in their schizophrenia. They worship the USSR but when the talk comes to the evil side of that regime they immediately say things like "Stalin was Georgian", despite it was all ruSSians who were in leading positions.
Talk about the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 - they'll spin like it was teh Warsaw Pact responsible for it and they refuse to apologize.
Again, the Warsaw pact was just another group of vassal states enslaved by evil ruSSia.
When the tragedy in Chernobyl happened - people in the Ost Bloc learned about it DAYS later because all governments were shitting themselves and waited until Moscow says something.
Moscow didn't want to admit what happened but had to budge once there was too much information coming from the free world via Radio Free Europe or BBC.
Yes I think you are correct. I read an interview with a local ( must have worked at the plant) . He said he asked the ordinary soldiers if they knew where they where and the history. And they ALL ( young 20-30 yr olds) said they had NEVER heard of Chernobyl before they arrived, had NEVER heard about the disaster, never learned about it at school( !!!!!!!! ) and had no idea how dangerous digging trenches in the forest could be. He said he could not believe they could have been so ignorant.
Well they know now as people have become ill ( we don't know if they have died as the Russians will NEVER tell us) imagine all that contaminated equipment , people , clothing all,going back into Russia and being the silent killer in on their own soil.
I hope the man who advised the orcs to dig deeper received a special award.
We never have heard such a stupid story! Everybody, even children know about the dangerous accident of Tschernobyl in die 80ies!!
😂😂😂🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🔱💪
Sure, "Lenin's Tomb Membership," at the Master Orc Level.
"the orcs to dig deeper" So Moria is a Radioactive waste repository?
@@4T3hM4kr0n why do you think the Goblin’s look like they do?!? “Down down down down…. Down in Goblin town!”? Bwuahahaha 😹😹
My wife is Ukrainian and she arranged for me a private tour of Chornobyl. We went into a few places you were not supposed to go and our dosimeters went absolutely nuts. I can't even imagine the insanity of telling troops to dig there and the insanity of following those orders.
them soldiers are dead or are still dying!
Noone can, becouse this fairy tale is ukranian propoganda.
not going to lie I think your wife was trying to kill you lol. Just joking ofc
@@dewfree5869 To be honest the levels they got likely aren't that high and likely less than an air crew received in 1 year of normal duties in the air. Discussions about these topics are often hugely overexaggerated and there is almost no place outside in Chernobyl that would lead to any type of acute radiation sickness. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I want to see dosage readings in the area of clearly over 100 millisieverts.
Most people without the specific medical and scientific training to understand radiation and it's health risks cannot assess how much risk they might be in. I'm guessing that also includes you.
yo Operator Starsky! I hope youre as good as the situation allows you to be. Greetings from Finland, its a tough job, personally i cant even imagine how it is there in the battlefield, but youre doing it for the right reason, just like my forefathers did in 1939-1940 and again from 1941 to 1944. There are no words powerful enough to describe what Ukraine is doing right now! All of the nordic/transatlantic people are rooting for you guys!! Give em hell!! Fight for freedom!!! SLAVA UKRAINI!!!
Big support from my wife and I in Edmonton, Alberta, 🇨🇦 Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦 brother Starsky!
Thank you so much!
@@StarskyUA - Canada loves Ukraine sir - 💙💙🍁💛💛
The first thing I heard after the invasion is that they took control of Chernobyl. Who in their right minds takes control of Chernobyl? That's when I knew they had absolutely no idea of what they were doing.
The Ukrainians actually anticipated that before the invasion started that the Russians would come trough there and had set up a defensive line forcing the Russians to establish a presence in the contaminated zone
what the general thought makes sense tho, he isn't the one digging anyways
Taking the area was one thing, but when they started digging trenches they were off their rocker. When the rain comes it washes the radioactive dust off the pavement, into the dirt, where it settles. You're fine around there honesty. Just stay on the pavement.
And yea those animals might create a false sense of safety but they only live for 5-7 years. If they cause enough cellular damage to inflict a ton of cancer a decade from now, they'll be dead from other causes before that's a factor.
You ask me, it's a decision from the higher-ups to gain a position that it could be a nightmare to start a conflict in. You start a military situation around the plant and you risk *a lot* going wrong. If they manage to maintain this position, it's a very strong foothold, until all their soldiers get cancer
Slava Ukraini!! Heroyam Slava!! Slava @Operator Starsky, best Press Officer! 🖤🌻🇺🇦
Thank you so much! I'm doing my best!
@@StarskyUA I think you were a HUGE hit on The Enforcer livestream the other night! Much success to you in the future! And many thanks and congrats on your part in that successful fund raiser too!!!
@@nobodyknows3180 Leaf Spring Army!! 🖤🇺🇦
@@StarskyUA 😂they are not very clever🤔🔥the ru army😅 slava Ukraine🇺🇦🌻💙💛😊
Well described excellent for information untainted by the mainstream press. Powerful work.
Whoever told Russian soldiers to dig deeper, needs to be awarded the highest medal of valor and given a comedy special on Netflix.
Real time "Tragic Comedy Award".
No. Many of those soldiers are victims too. They are sons and fathers. Many don't want to be there. There are also soldiers doing unspeakably bad things. The workers on the ground should be able to see difference. That general should be fed the soil that he's making his troops dig in. (It's difficult to believe that a general took Chernobyl simply because he wanted a safe headquarters. But then again, there's no reason that would make any sense.)
@@brianwest2775 look from their point of view: it wasn't the general keeping them hostage, keeping guard outside of their livong quarters, ensuring they can't escape etc. It was all those "victims". Sure you gotta see the difference but it's not like they aren't guilty at all.
We're from the opposite side of the planet, furthest from Chernobyl, and yet we know enough to never to mess with it if we get the chance to travel. It blew up more than 35 years ago and there has been countless documentaries and news features about it almost every year. I guess news and facts do not travel well in Russia.
Russia rewrites its history to cover up and deny these events.
Remember that those in the Russian army are not the brightest nor the most educated Russians, not even near... they really are cannon fodder from poorer peripheral areas (so mothers don't make much noise when they die) and dumb enough to sign the contract.
No guarantee every Orc in that herde knew exactly where they were. Good chance they did with all the markings that are up around the area. But there are still people that live in that 1000 square mile zone to this day.
Most of chernobyl is safe enough to be in for weeks to months but then there are places like the reactor and the red forest that are extremely radioactive
As said, you can visit chornobyl quite safely. Just know where you can stay and where not.
Keep up the great work Operator Starsky. Slava Ukraine.
For all those wondering how the Russian soldiers could be so completely ignorant of the dangers in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, you have to understand how Russia (and the USSR) operates. We in the West, know about the extent of the Chernobyl disaster because we have no reason not to know about it or talk about it. But remember, this occurred in 1986 during the decline of the Soviet Union. The disaster was an absolute embarrassment for the soviet government. And like any good oppressive communist government, you never tell your people about your government's failures. The extent of the Chernobyl disaster was minimized and covered up in the soviet era to protect the incompetent government. The Soviet Union may have collapsed in 1991, but its text books and teaching curricula continue to live on in post-soviet Russia. If you understand that, it's not at all hard to understand why poorly-educated, mostly rural and impoverished, Russian conscripts educated by pro-soviet teachers would not know much, if anything at all, about the dangers surrounding the Chernobyl reactor site. It was conveniently (for the government) and inconveniently (for these soldiers) deleted from their history books. (Proof that what you don't know CAN kill you.)
First of all, i,m against of Russia invading Ukraine, but sorry, you’re wrong.
I’m from east Europe which was still occupied in 1986. Soviet Union was alerting the rest of the world in Vienna, but west downplayed the thread. I remember when i was a kid, getting iodine pills at school with lunch from the government as a countermeasure. They knew and didn't lie about it. We all know about Chernobyl.
Highly doubt that's the case (I'm a Lithuanian who remembers 1986, even though I was just a kid). Yes, USSR downplayed the disaster dramatically in the beginning, but later it was one of the major reasons leading to the fall of this bloody empire. I would speculate these kids did not know about it not because they were not told about it in school or whatever, but because they didn't know much about anything. This army was conscripted of mostly ethnic minorities (of which there are a lot in RF), underprivileged men (who probably struggled in school and never went for higher education) from remote regions and little known autonomous republics of this fascist empire. These people were murdering pensioners for their old washing machines, what knowledge should we expect from them? I would also speculate many of them did not know what Kyiv or Lviv were, tbh. BTW, not to defend ruskies, but there are such unbelievably ignorant people everywhere and often in bigger numbers that we tend to admit :(
@@polystirenman1 "The Soviet Union was alerting the rest of the world in Vienna"?... really?... where did you get that? It is a well known fact admitted by Gorbachev that Sweden had detected nuclear fallout and approached the Russians with absolute proof asking what was going on and where? It was ONLY at this time that Gorbachev admitted the truth.
.
The plot gets thicker - or should I say sicker.
.
The west had detected that the Russians were giving people in the Soviet Union iodine. That story leaked out and it was obvious this was related to nuclear fallout. When Gorbachev was approached on this intelligence - he did what the Russians were good at doing denied and lied. Only when Swedish nuclear alarms began ringing did the world start to realize this was a huge issue for the world at large. And then nuclear alarms started ringing all throughout Europe - the world was on edge and Gorbachev finally admitted to his lies in an attempt to calm down the world - we had no idea what had truly happened and we were beginning to fear even worse things. Reluctantly Russia allowed transparency only when Europe threatened serious reaction to and ever growing radioactive cloud spreading across Europe.
.
To say, the "Soviet Union was alerting the rest of the world" could not be further from the truth. In South Africa we were getting news reports of a Radioactive cloud emanating from the Soviet Union and watching experts trying to analyse what they thought it could be while Europeans were starting to fly down to South Africa to escape what they thought was the beginning of the end of the world. It was truly scary stuff. Watching politicians contacting their respective Soviet embassies and watching President Reagan threaten Russia if they did not come clean.
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Truly a ghastly evil nation for how they handled that situation.
.
I will never forget that experience, and to hear some Russian troll describe it as Russia being the hero is truly dispicable.
they downplayed it in 91... but the whole of europe knew what went down. and people in that part of the world know history a little better then other parts of the world and for them not to know this since the begenning of the internet... its not like chernobyl was in south africa.. was literally few hundreads of metres from them.
@@polystirenman1 i can smell the rubles in this comment 😂😂you(ussr) literally lied to The entire world and Russia still continues to lie to their own citizens abt the reality of it to this day💀
ru gen: "They'll never bomb us here, there's nucleur waste around here."
ru soldier: "There's nucleur waste around here....?"
ru gen: *stare*
ru soldier: *stare*
Prayers for your safety and Peace for Ukraine 🇺🇦
Ukraine is a bunch of nazis
I was skeptical when I first heard about Russians getting sick. I thought that maybe tracked vehicles kicked up some dirt that they breathed in. What they did was beyond anything I imagined.
Hello from Canada. Never thought in a million years we'd be living in such a fucked up world. i feel this way because there are people who are actually supportive of what Russia is doing in your country. I sincerely hope you can enjoy that bottle of whiskey and am looing forward to raising a victory drink with you in spirit love, laughter, and freedom. Stay safe
Us humans will always act like this, it will never change. If you're talking about living in a fucked up world be glad you weren't born 400 years ago now that was fucked up.
@@vulcrian729 agreed
@@vulcrian729 Do you think that one day war will be something in the past? It’s fucked up because humans can’t evolve without conflict.
Trying to rationalize this General's thinking... he was smart enough to know Chernoble wouldn't be bombed... but not smart enough to keep his troops from digging their own graves? If I didn't know better, I'd say this General sabotaged his own battalion.
You don't think conscripts are expendable?
He thought the war will be over in less than a week and a little radiation won’t hurt anybody.
@@orexgabriel2448 who needs trenches if it's over in a week though?!
@@aaronsmith4940 good point, but maybe it is just standard procedure to protect troops from potential shelling.
@@orexgabriel2448 I can see that, but the Ukrainians would never shell a power plant, suppose the conscripts don't know that though.
I can’t feel sorry for them. They have created their own mess. Everyone knows that no one was to be there for at least 50 years. They would capture it to be “safe”, 😂 but instead they looked stupid to the rest of the world. Forever Ukraine 🇺🇦
It’s sad for the ones that had absolutely no idea of where they were or what they were doing.
Who knows? Perhaps they are so impoverished financially that their black and white TV just shows replays of 1945 🤷♀️? They never got the news that this is 2022 and invading toxic wasteland is no longer cool, go figure!
The soldiers didn't know, they weren't told, and thusly weren't equipped properly to take a nuclear power facility let alone one as infamous as this. I do feel sorry for them. Those that were giving the orders, nope.
It worse than when Trump told the American people to inject bleach to kill Covid. I think there were some people hospitalised for ingesting disinfectant and shit.
@@Ripper13F1V exactly… shame on the ones that sent them there, knowing very well how dangerous it was.
I think in part because the invader wanted actual combat experience in a radioactive environment.
not an accident or an over-sight, they were human guinea pigs.
This makes sense...
Every semi-intelligent person knows what will happen to an animal in a radioactive area - they die. Who needs to be there to find out!
Nah, they did plenty of that back in Soviet times. Just like every single nuclear power did.
This is a case of reckless leadership and ignorant personell. That general knew exactly what was going on but he deemed the safety of his HQ from Ukrainian attacks more important than the safety of all of his soldiers. Its the story of this Russian war, isnt it? The ordinary Russian conscript counts as little as a Ukrainian life to the Russian government and military leadership.
@@johncarroll7585 This is not exactly true. It is a game of jenga - radiation kick out bricks from your organism, the more radiation the more bricks missing. However individual luck is heavily involved. Well if large dose then of course your jenga is on fire.
"Yeah I think you need to dig a bit deeper, for safety of course" 🤣🤣
That mural is beautiful!
It's a shame they all didn't spend some real time there. Stay safe Operator Starsky. You and your men amd women.
A month is plenty if you live in that dirt
Thank you, Operator Starsky. I had wondered why the Russians would want to occupy what is probably the deadliest place on earth. Your answer to this question makes perfect sense. The Russians were more interested in their officers, and supplies and they cared nothing for their troops. This is the answer to this question, and it explains why the Russians are losing. No planning, no logistics, no civility, NO morality, and NO regard for any human life. I hope that the Russian officers dug deeper than the enlisted men. I am an American, and I now regard Ukraine as our sister country. Victory and glory to Ukraine! May God protect and keep President Zelinskyy. I will be watching your channel. Jim
The situation at Chernobyl is the perfect microcosm of the Russian military mindset. You couldn't invent a better example.
Yes, he couldn't invent better lie. Have you seen any trench dug by Russian there, don't you think whole world media would show it all the time if it existed? Russians went there because they didn't want to be acused of releasing radioactive materials so thank them for this. I'll pay you 1000eur for good proof of what this agent who can't write Chetnobyl said.
@@codaalive5076
1. There are plenty of videos of Russian digging at Chernobyl on TH-cam. A 3 second search isn't that hard. Here's one for you: th-cam.com/video/frIe7gk7jRI/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=TheSun
2. The Russians set up at Chernobyl because they knew Ukraine wouldn't shell them there.
3. If you're going to criticize someone's spelling of Chernobyl, make sure you don't misspell it yourself. Don't type something wrong like "Chetnobyl" for example. You'll look stupid.
This must be your first day on TH-cam Russian Stooge duty.
Thanks OS - Always A Pleasure Mate! - Slava Ukraine - From Oregon USA!
Thanks for such interesting reporting my friend. I've wondered what that place looked like... You all take care. Glory to Ukraine! 🇺🇦
Pretty sure the entire Russian invasion of Ukraine will be known to history as 'Operation Dumbass". This being one of the lowlights. An entire battalion group just got themselves blown up trying to cross a river as well, a truly amazing feat only the Russians could pull off.
Recent news, they are trying to cross that part of the river again, with a third bridge this time. Hopefully, they will be pushed back.
That is a brilliant name for it! It really fits. Putin is trying to use 19th Century tactics while the Ukrainians use 21st Century tactics. Keep feeding the Ukrainians the weapons and watch Russia disintegrate.
@N Fels To lose that many men and vehicles in one fire mission means they were grouped in a way that was militarily unsound.
Modern armies are able to coordinate these kinds of maneuvers without losing entire echelons.
Russian command from the top down is incompetent to the point of disaster. That includes command digging its men into soil that is highly radioactive and will kill many of them at the dose rate they received.
The entire operation is based on totally asinine assumptions like Ukraine is run by Nazis, it isn't. We know from election results that less than 2% of Ukrainian voters supported far right parties in the last elections.
Or that NATO is a threat to Russia, the only way it would be is if Russia attacks a NATO nation and triggers Article Five.
Or that all Putin had to do was invade Ukraine and the government, the army and the entire Ukrainian people would collapse like a house of cards and he could simply add them all to Russia.
"Operation Dumbass" is a vast understatement of how idiotic Putin's entire approach to Ukraine and all his neighbours is.
Not only has he failed utterly in Ukraine, he completely revitalized NATO which will probably have two new members as Finland and Sweden will announce in two days their decisions to join NATO.
@N Fels absolutely. Demographics and time is against Russia but the bear must not be underestimated.
"The Dumbass War" if you will.
Sir I've been watching you since day one. You are a highly intelligent, extremely honorable man. Please let your colleagues know we are praying for your safe return to your families. The bravery and patriotism of your people is admirable and fascinating. May God watch over you all
"Two Hours Later".
The perfect interlude and transition amidst all the surreal. I laughed out loud.
THEY GOING TO GET WHAT THERE DESERVE!!!! SALVA UKRAINE 🇺🇦
Thank you for the update on this matter- I can sleep a lot better knowing it’s in safe hands… and everything else. Your reporting has been amazing please keep it up and please please please stay safe- kick ass and give them hell.
Thank you for this interesting report, Operator Starsky, yes - I couldn’t believe it when I first heard about the Russian soldiers digging trenches, really crazy! Slava Ukraini!🇺🇦
Starsky !
Thank you, i was following this weird story when it happend, i could not believe it back then.
People in the Chernobyl plant were able to communicate with us on chat services.
Thank you for attending the service and the background story behind it!
Love your channel/content since I can't understand Ukrainian language I'm really greatful for you keeping us English speaking people upto date.
Respect and love to all Ukraine people defending their right to be free and saving the rest of Europe from that crazy little man! And his Orcs.
God bless Ukraine from the UK ✌...
The way you are able to still find humor in things, and make people laugh is amazing though such a tragic situation is awesome🤣💙💛
100% agree. I’m sure the poor 19 year old Russian conscripts didn’t find it funny (may they RIP). It’s hilarious for we in the west though.
@@OceanGuy808 Yes, may the Orcs rest in pieces.🤣💙💛
Happy warriors are successful warriors. So, when facing great odds, crack a joke.
I have to admit. I did find it funny the worker telling the Russians to dig deeper...
Those who lose their humor will lose their sanity.
I have family there( in Ukraine).After sending the women and children to safety my cousin went to enlist.Havent heard from him since.
Hope and pray 🙏 for peace.
Keep yourself safe,Slava Heroyam!
After being told (by the staff) where they were, why didn't they use their phones to confirm their location and look up how dangerous it was? We know many of them had their phones with them.
At the time the Russians captured Chernobyl I asked, sarcastically: "Is this an experiment? Are the Russians trying to get their troops irradiated? Have they brought spiders?" because I assumed they were just being stupid. But this is a whole other level of depravity.
Soviet union secret service reported USA was building some Mutant by exposing people to radio activity...They reported also 1 Green giant. They even have some secret books of that time print with the title "Mutant" . One of the book was reported USA was able to have 4 turtles to become human like look and able to use Asian style fighting!! So yes it was a experiment to create a Russian mutant army!
I always thought they did it to threaten the west and to remind us of the catastrophe...
Orcs will be orcs.
It takes a strong nation to root out Nazis. Russia is that nation. th-cam.com/video/0aCf6pmdY7E/w-d-xo.html
@@MrClaudiuzz9 Pretty much.
One of the great advantages of having ignorant, uneducated troops (and citizens) is that the people in power can make them do all sorts of absolutely insane things without any fear of disobedience.
Knowledge is power.
Kinda like the Nazi battalions running around Ukraine that nobody talks about
In this case you mean control of knowledge is power
In Putin's Russia, ignorance is strength.
I can believe this all too easily, the mindset is scarier than the crazy actions , really great update and explanation of this occupation ! Victory to Ukraine!!! Stay safe 🇬🇧
Thank you so much for each and every video you put out. What a debacle is this war, I hope and pray for your safety and for you to keep up the good fight!
Dear Starsky, I have never before witnessed war from such an upclose and personal perspective as you have brought to us here. It makes me ashamed of the human race to see the terrible destruction and death poured on others for no reason other than incredible hubris. It makes me proud to see the strength of resistance and the courage of those attacked who stand and fight back. It makes me sad and outraged to see the huge numbers of people (in Russia as well as in the USA and other parts of the world) who have given up reality and rely entirely on lies and insanity told them by wannabe-leaders with self-serving agendas. It gives me hope to see people like you and your comrades not only standing up to evil but sharing the fight vicariously with those of us who cannot stand beside you. I want to say Thank you! in the strongest possible way and let you know just how much you are appreciated!!
T CM: Beautifully put!
All of Russia, US and other parts of the world have not given up reality and know when they are being lied to. Just as you are doing here. Telling lies. You say you can not stand beside them in this war. Many people including many Americans have gone there to fight along side . Just as you are able if you wore not a propagandist coward. I served my country for 6 years. You the propagandist coward is the type of person who gave me the reason to serve and rid the world of people like you who sit at in the comfort of home and pass judgement on others. May God protect the people of the world. In all countries!
It's awful that so many people prefer to be willfully ignorant of an inconvenient reality.
The madness that overtook the USA has spread to Russia, where it originally came from. It's like they pretend to have blinders to the Putin personality
Cult.
The soldiers being oblivious to the effects snd the history of that place is astoundingly concerning. It's even (somewhat) funny that some kid in highschool from other place would know better about radiation safety (or even just about Chornobyl) than that one guy who spent their time digging trenches in the Red Forest, wallowing in the sPiCyYy DuSt.
It would be funny to think about, if it weren't tragic.
Tragedy is when *humans* suffer or die. Fortunately, only Russian soldiers suffered and and died in this story.
That's what happens when you live under an autocratic regime that indoctrinates the people to retain control. It's also why most Russians actually believe this invasion was the right thing to do...
Given the Soviet worship, I'm no longer surprised that they had no idea about one of the biggest failures of the Soviet Union. The craziest part of it all is that they still want to try to erase history.
The average Netflix subscriber even knows what caused the power plant to explode, that the government had to evacuate Pripyat and surrounding area because it was too radioactive, that the forest changed its color because of radioactive soil.
I guess soldiers didn't watch the series, though Kinopoisk gave it highest score for a TV series.
You have to remember that the Chernobyl accident was largely covered up by the Russian media at the time, and is likely not referred to in school in Russia to this day. So rather a case of "you reap what you sow"
That has been one of the scariest places on earth for me. I'm even getting anxious seeing you walk around it.
He should have added the sound of a Geiger counter ticking as a soundtrack 😃
@@atomicshadowman9143 Yes!
@@kymfernandez6855
It's not crazy dangerous anymore but I wouldn't be digging holes and sleeping in them. There are still fully operational reactors there and daily employees.
Fortunately for the world, there wasn't an artillery duel churning up everything.
@AMechanicalSoul
I bet the radiation sickness stories are propaganda.
Yet I've never seen a modern army so slovenly. I bet they'll get typhus because the Russians seem incapable of digging a proper latrine. My NCOs would have skinned me alive for pooping in a fighting position 🤢
His English is so good! Stay safe, stay strong, and be loved. You guys are amazing
"Monument of death"
🖤 Thank you for this video! It helps me put the Chernobyl situation into perspective. I've been thinking about it since the beginning of the full scale invasion.
Stay safe & thank you for your strength!🇺🇦💪
Я люблю тебе, Україно.
💙💛
I love you, Ukraine.
💙💛
I had read that the specialist radiation hospital in Belarus was full of Russian troops that were being treated for high level radiation sickness. Belarus was actually contaminated more than Ukraine as the wind blew across it those days at the end of April 1986 and it is just a short distance from the plant. They know radiation very well in Belarus. Belarus actually has a larger exclusion zone. I'm guessing that the Russians had no idea of the dangers as it was hidden during Soviet times and also as many of them probably never went far from their homes before the army.
We will probably never know how much suffering was caused by their miscalculation. You would think that every single soldier in that forest would be sick.
in scotland we sent aid to the people of Gomel, so we know about white russia and the nuclear disaster. Maybe rostov na donu and minsk don't know but I bet they do. Terrorist
@@cahoonm probably not, lots of the radioactivity decayed now, it's much less dangerous. It's not like it's instant death sentence. It really depends on what exactly they did. It would be helpful if someone went through the trenches with a Geiger counter to see how exactly they were exposed (I've seen in a video on a different channel "Plainly Difficult" that Ukrainians did do that but I don't know what results they got from that). Plus if they ate any hot spot dust or something... lots of those dangers might be very random. Even digging the tremches, they might've digged in one place that was exactly in the worst area of Red Forest, and several meters away it would be much safer because it was outside of the area of the dust fall. Or they could habe digged it in the border between two "tree graves" (where soil might've been "clean", taken from somewhere else or just from those deep areas) while some other soldiers digged into the tree grave and encountered actual radioactive trees and maybe even the extremely radioactive graphite reactor parts.
@@tymondabrowski12 They did after they left. You can find videos from news outlets online and the counters are going apeshit. It is true that a lot of the short halflife isotopes have decayed but the red / yellow forest is the mos contaminated part of the Ukrainian exclusion zone. They also buried a lot of soil from other areas there to "clean" them up. It is still highly radioactive there. They were cooking on wood fires with wood cut from the forest. Their food was contaminated, their clothing contaminated. They likely breathed in an ate loads of radioactive particles.
Talking about dangers of graphite maybe people should look at the graphene oxide in all the coviid vaxxes 😵😬
I never thought of it this way, but Chernonyl Zone itself also did its part to drive out the enemy, by passively unleashing its own special brand of WMD when the invaders dug deep trenches into its sacred poison soil. Even Chernobyl would rather be looked after by 🇺🇦, thank you very much.
This is my 1st time experiencing Operator Starsky and I'm a fan forever. Your sense of humour is wonderful as well as your English. Peace to you and please be safe.
I'm glad you answered this question. I was wondering about it the moment I heard that the plant had been captured. I'm not surprised that the Russian commander failed to mention anything of the dangers to his troops. Probably the troops were too young to know anything about what happened there already. Now, I'm sure they are still paying for it, assuming they are still alive.
Give it a rest. Even the guys who went into the plant to shut off that water valve after the explosion lived to like 60 years old
@@TH-camcensoredmyusername Most of the fastest responding Chernobyl emergency workers died within six months of exposure. Some within a week. There is a statue to the three men who dove below the reactor to prevent an even worse explosion.
To the top Russian tiers, their own men are expendable. The Russians come by numbers.
@@TH-camcensoredmyusername What you are saying is actually not true. Research it.
"No need to thank me" 😂😂😂😂 this sense of humor is on point. Take care and stay safe! Long live Ukraine!
I adore the mural behind you, I love that it's celebrating Chornobyl's unexpected role as a wildlife preserve for takhi horses... making the best of a bad situation.
are those the 6 legged or 8 legged ones?
Thanks for the info. Now I have to Google Tahki horses. Edit: Google says it's Przewalski's horses. Really cool.
@@sk31370n They glow too bright to count them. The russians were there collecting their 💩to fuel new atomic powered personnel carriers or hand warmers I forgot which
@@sk31370n better be 6 legged as I don't think you could catch the 8 legged ones.
The chernobyl reactor is in the city pripyat.
This is typical of a leadership who won't let its people think, and hides it failures because of shame...
Glad to see u brother bwell keep up good work
So nice to see history is preserved in Odessa with the find of Amphorae in the trenches and send to museum to be added to Ukraine rich history.🇺🇦🇳🇱
Like all power stations there, Chernobyl has its own own railhead. (This is still important today for maintenance, plus there are still one or two working reactors in the district.) So the Ruzzians probably thought they would use the railways for long-distance travel for their tanks etc, as that’s how they transport the armoured vehicles across Russia. But the Ukrainians disabled vital railtracks & systems in front of the advance. This kind of precaution is why that giant convoy had to drive all the way from the border to Kyiv and ran out of fuel.
*According to the speculation of Ukrainian propaganda mills, not anything we actually know.
@@MatthewChenault
Well it makes sense, more sense than the Russians just being random
@@kjj26k, I was talking about the latter statement of “the convoy ran out of fuel,” not about some of the reasons for taking it.
However, the most obvious reason is that Russia wanted to ensure the facility’s safety from Ukrainian partisan activities by securing the facility and the surrounding area.
If the Ukrainians sabotaged the facility while Russia was moving through the area, which would have exposed the entire force to high radiation levels as well as potentially harm Belarusian and Ukrainian civilians.
So, securing the facility with a company of troops was seen as important.
@@kjj26k, I would think “securing a facility that could release lethal levels of radiation across a wide area” would be intuitive enough of an explanation, but apparently it isn’t.
It’s also telling that the Russians did not disturb any of the equipment nor radioactive samples in the research laboratories.
As for the allegations of trenches being dug in some areas, I have yet to see substantial proof of it and, even if they were dug, the amount of radiation in the soil is not going to be anywhere near lethal dosages, especially after ~36 years. Much of the radioactive cesium isotopes will be locked up in the trees and living matter rather than in the soil, since Cesium 137 acts similar to Potassium and is absorbed from the soil by trees. Additionally, over half of the Cesium 137 originally released in 1986 has decayed down to non-radioactive elements, reducing the overall radioactivity in the region.
So, it’s not too dangerous to dig into the soil near Chernobyl now-a-days as it was thirty years ago and, as long as radiation equipment was on hand for the Russian soldiers and dust was kept at a minimum, it shouldn’t pose much of a risk.
@@MatthewChenault Blowing up Chernobyl to expose the Russian troops with high radiation would have polluted Ukraine for hundreds of years. You say you have to see proof of the Russians digging trenches in radioactive soil . Well I suggest you look for the hundreds of videos readily available. It bothers me when people like you have a wild fantasy or simply follow Russian propaganda, because everything from the West must be bad and Russia must be good. There is no justification for this war, there was no justification for taking Krimea in 2014. It's all made up fantasies, like all that crap you wrote above.
Ever-grateful for you and your remarkable reporting! You always shed so much information and with such a gentle and delightful manner! Thank you countless times for you! Please stay safe my friend! 🙌🙇♂️🙇♂️👏👏
Thank you for covering this. I was dumbfounded when I heard what the Russians were doing there. I am currently reading the book "Chernobyl Prayer" by Svetlana Alexievich which tells the stories of the people who lived through the disaster in 1986.
Hi Starsky, can you tell us more about the complete obliteration of a Russian platoon, by the Ukrainian army, attempting to cross a river with pontoon bridge?
It was a whole battalion
I’ll look for the link
Ben hodges did a good peice about it for the times radio.
There is a twitter thread by the combat engineer who conducted it. 1500 Ru dead. 58+ vehicules and tanks
th-cam.com/video/pI3aYCK_rfE/w-d-xo.html
Once u are part of the Europe and free of the Russians you will be a very prosperous Nation!
We love u 🇺🇦 from 🇸🇰 brother
I listened to your cast with times radio at one point you said you try to find interesting things to talk about.
Every thing that’s going on over there is interesting & important. Keep up the good work & stay safe 🫡🇺🇦
For the officers to know of the dangers and not protect their troops shows real animosity and contempt. For the troops to have never heard of Chernobyl shows a failure in Russian education. It's as if Russia has a Napoleonic War era ethic in its officer corps. 🤦
Napoleon had a great respect for his troopers, and he loved to come and visit the bivouacs. I think the general did not know the dangers himself
@@charlesjenner1951
I wrote "era", and the topic is Russia. Thus Russian armies in that era, who were led by aristocrats who saw their troops as expendible. Jeez!
(But even Napoleon, especially later, would send his troops into the maw of grapeshot rather than manoeuvre; and most of the French soldiers were commanded by lesser generals.)
We have a saying in Sweden which feels very right when it comes to the russians digging in the forest. "If the head is weak the body suffers" =If your dumb you will suffer
As a Native American Indian(Cherokee)that sounds a lot like my ancestors philosophical sayings. Very true! Love it!
Three points I'd like to mention here.
1. The Russian General decided that Chernobyl would make an optimal base for granting him safety in a neutral zone. However he allowed his soldiers to dig trenches and live in the highly radioactive exclusion zone. An Army General would have full knowledge of the Russian Army's involvement in decontaminating the region in the mid to late 80's. He knew...
2. The Russian soldiers' limited or oblivious nature of the Chernobyl disaster could be the result of Russia's history of refusing to admit to failures which could also influence their education system and state media coverage of the event. In the US we were taught about our historical accomplishments and our failures and also the scandals (Iran-Contra trade, Bay of Pigs battle, Mi Lai masacre are examples in a military standpoint). I could imagine that a history lesson in an impoverished Russian town would only teach the glorious accomplishments of the USSR and the now Putin Federation while blaming any faults on either the WWII Nazis or the West.
3. Radiation exposure is a scary, invisible and long-term killer. It would be hard to determine the exposure levels each solider received but if they received burns and were vomitting then they could have 2 - 6 weeks to live depending on treatment. Others may not show symptoms but could develop cancers in the future and their offspring could also be born with defects or diseases carried attributed to the damaged paternal DNA. It's sad. all of this.
"Cost of Lies." (c) You basically trying to retell the HBO "Chornobyl".
in russian army you get medals based on how big the losses are in your command. he was just trying to get some..
4. nuclear fallout covered the ground in all of europe. including the dirt i dug while making foxhole while in US Army
Yes, so sad, so pointless and unnecessary! Only killing and suffering come from all those with insatiable lust for power and control. It is madness.
My God these leaders should be charged ith murder! Radiation is a cruel death and they knew that.
Such a tragedy that could have been avoided
Finally, that question haunted me all the time. Thanks for solving this mystery.
Kudos to the reactor worker that told them to dig deeper! You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out that they had occupied and dug in in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. A part of me wonders how they don't know about it. I mean I understand that Russia controls information that gets to the General public and their military evidently. But another part of me is like what the hell you don't know about the Chernobyl disaster? Have you been living completely entombed under a rock? There was a time when I would have said I feel bad for the troops. That was about 3 months ago. Now I just feel like they got what they deserved. I also wonder how many of the sheeple troops have severe radiation poisoning or will get cancer as a result. And then their government will just let them die.
probably nowadays rashists have some brain parasites. they incredible stupid even at face of abundance of warnings and information. also violent.
Especially when they just recently had a hit TV miniseries about Chernobyl!
@@Masonicbrother if you think about how Putin loves the Soviet Union and wants to bring it back, I would expect that the Soviets that are running Russia would have blocked that miniseries because of the way it portrays Soviet communism. But I agree with you really you haven't seen the miniseries or heard of Chernobyl?
@@Masonicbrother russia made their own version if i recall correctly.
still. the troops may have been from far east and never talked about it - or radiation in general.
the worst part is those people are radioactive going home to their families and now they are exposed
It's great to see you guys being able to walk about with a little freedom so close to the orcs border without bullet proff vests etc slava Ukraine, also glory to the defenders of Ukraine azov warriors to the last true hero's.
I can't remember when someone for whom English is a 2nd language has ever made me laugh SO hard by their use of sarcasm. Example - "...[Chernobyl], the place where Russian forces achieved their biggest victory over the mind of a human" LOL!!!
Thanks 🙏 Glory for Ukraine!
I hope that Ukraine officials are checking captured/destroyed Russian tanks and equipment (and enemy soldiers too I guess) that might have been in trenches etc at Chernobyl to ensure theres no danger for (eg) Ukrainian soldiers re-using the equipment...
Actually that's a good point! I'm gonna ask about this for you, because it's a really good question.
Great comments
@@StarskyUA You are a fed spreading massive levels of misinformation to the uneducated masses. We know who you really are 'Starsky'.
That is also a good question I was going to ask, maybe they were going to use the sand bags and soldiers irradiated as some kind of sick ploy or trick to kill the Ukraine president? I wouldn't be surprised by that level decent and evil.
I think telling the soldiers to dig deeper may actually be a honest advice, because the radioactivity is in the top centimetres. So filling sand bags with material dug out deeper is a valid advice.
Certainly in the Red Forest where the Soviet Union left it mostly undisturbed. Around the plant and in other areas where the Soviets buried the top layer of dirt? Digging deeper would be a mistake. I personally wouldn't want to dig in either place, and I have a fairly reasonable understanding of the dangers of radiation from the accident.
The most dangerous radio isotope last's 250,000 years and these idiot's filled sandbags with it were they would presumably breath some of the dust in
It's a time limited area in general. Due to radiation level and there are small pieces of reactor graphite still lying around. Spending a month there in trenches?...
th-cam.com/video/ejZyDvtX85Y/w-d-xo.html
I imagine the radiation will have leached deeper down that just the top soil. Whatever the physics of the situation, for Putin's general to 'hide' in a irradiated power plant considering 'safe' as the Ukranians wouldn't bomb it, shows how ilinformed even the top military leaders are about what happens in the world beyond the Russian border.
A lot of the contaminated soil was buried. So around the actual power station its not ideal to dig deep.
Thanks for this fascinating look into this part of the war!
I... am lost for words. I get the general's reason to pick that place, but still, there's still a lot of shit there that will fuck those Russians up, even if they move back home.
Because evil equals stupidity. The good will always prevail.
Operator Starsky, your channel is one of the best on YT. You provide answers to some of the same questions as many of us are asking ourselves. Excellent work, the editing is on point and the use of clips such as SpongeBob always seem to fit right in. Will you continue to work in journalism after Ukraine destroys Russia?
Hi, When I first learned that Russian soldiers were fooled by their generals, “blindfolded and herded like sheep” by their own generals into Chernobyl, forced to dig trenches in the contaminated soil, having no idea about, what an extremely dangerous situation not only they were forced into, but also those who safeguarding the reactors, and as you say Operator Starsky “when they left in their vehicles they brought with them all of the highly contaminated soil and that’s a real problem and danger for many people, animals and countries.
I can’t fathom why RF doesn’t put everything “on the table” - if they had been honest with their soldiers and explained in advance why and how, I can only assume they would have had, in return a much better informed military force, but Kremlin avoid everything that could possibly include the word moral….. This Chernobyl situation was disturbing and a real threat. I honestly struggle really hard to comprehend everything that is happening in Ukraine, I don’t have word to describe the horror, brutality RF forces you all to go through.
(and, me writing about the Chernobyl 👆 is under no circumstances an excuse for the painful, tragic, traumatic war RF have forced upon everyone in Ukraine, Ukraine a sovereign country, there’s no excuse today, not tomorrow, no never.
Thank you Operator Starsky for keeping us updated and informed. It’s very appreciated 🙏 My heart and soul is in 🇺🇦
With kindness and respect, Grace
#СлаваУкраїні 💙💛🇺🇦🫶
@@Org80 The Soviets used tank destroyers (WW2 short-barreled tanks) to blast holes in the reactor buildings. They were left abandoned around the site. Too radiated to scrap.
@@Org80 yes I’m actually pretty well oriented about the Chernobyl situation.
What happened back then and all the learning that have been taught and the adjustment to the danger of the contamination have progressed, that’s why I find it sickening that Generals herded their soldiers into the Chernobyl area.
I wish you a happy day 🙏
@@Org80 🫶
That is some very strong woman think... give your enemy every opportunity to get ready and kill more of your troops? Very progressive of you.
@@dollarcostbackpacker1226 Hi I feel like you write what you wrote because you could 🙃. I’m pretty confident that you know exactly what I mean, and what my intentions for writing it was as well. It doesn’t require a master in rocket science to understand the importance of information and how access to information is crucial for our ability to make as good decision as possible, and access to information applies to the military and beyond the military. It’s normal that I wrote about “well informed military” in this particular text. Reliable and relevant information helps us grow, ask question, and to think independently.
I wish you a great weekend, filled with happiness and kindness🔆
With kindness and respect, Grace
I was in the middle of sipping my ice cold drink when you mentioned for the Russian Soldiers to dig deeper. As you can imagine my cold drink went everywhere from sudden laughing. Totally worth it!
Ukraine always stay strong
We proud of you people and soldier
God bless them.🙏.
I recently watched the HBO mini-docuseries on Chernobyl called "Chernobyl ". After watching that and the levels of deceit and propaganda the Soviets used, I'm not the least bit surprised by their stupidity at Chernobyl 36 years later. They went so far as to kill phone lines and close all exits so people couldn't leave back then so they could control the population with propaganda. Ukraine HAS to win this war that they didn't ask for. Going back to the days where information is so controlled that the population can't learn from history means they're doomed to repeat it.
“Cherenobyl” wasn’t a documentary and its rich to hear you call people stupid if you think it is. It dramaticized and condenses events, creates and eliminates while charactwrs and parts of the narrative to make an interesting show. Also, it rly pushes the idea of the USSR trying to cover it up when in reality it was more like nobody when what to do because it hadn’t happened before
Right, because Russia is the Soviet Union, right? :v
@@N1tr063nFr05trhym3 that's not what I meant but Putin was in the KGB and uses many of the same tactics of deceit and propaganda. Not much has changed.
@@xhg7a I didn't call anyone stupid. If you read, I said the stupidity... Any legitimate source on the matter reported on the Soviet Union trying to cover up the events at Chernobyl. The series was a dramatization of the events and at the time I wrote the comment, I wasn't sure what to call it. But either way, it presented facts that allow us to learn from history. Also, something similar had actually ALMOST happened in the US several years prior at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The US nearly completely bungled that response. If the USSR hadn't tried so hard to cover it up, they could have gotten help from the US.
Long live Ukraine. Stay safe my friend and thank you for what you do
Hope we get to hear how them Russians are in a few months, if they dead or extremely sick and almost dead
I heard they got sick immediately upon getting back to Russia. FYI = NRC knows this = everything they took back to Russia is radioactive for years.
Thank you for sharing what's happening it's important that the world know exactly what's happening I applaud your bravery as well as that if the Ukrainian people and stand behind you 💯