currently operating, they re still russian soldiers right now are still occupied the largest currently occupied operating nuclear power plant in ukraine which is also the largest nuclear power plant in all of europe. russian soldiers are there now. now we know what they did while they were in chernobyl. how are they doing with the one that s currently operating right now, right? just as we re learning the extent to which these guys respect and understand and can be trusted with all things nuclear. there s all this attention on whether or not putin wants to use nuclear weapons in the fight in ukraine. what about the nuclear damage troops are doing on the ground and nuclear power sites? joining us now is james acton, he s the courage of the nuclear policy program of the carnegie endowment for national peace. mr. action, i appreciate you take the time to be this night. thank you. thank you for having me. i m not an expert on these things. i am a lay observer just trying to sort of obs
failure of this rocket launch. but nothing to worry about. that was quickly proven false, a town about 25 miles away from the accident site started reporting that its radiation meters, radioactivity meters were going crazy after the accident. the russian government and made that town take down those reports and shut up about it. only later to the russian government have to announce that okay maybe there was something nuclear about the accident. and maybe it was just a couple of sodas who died of his colossal just in also five elite nuclear scientists. now they were than reports that in the doctors and nurses who treated people who were injured in the accident, those doctors and nurses wear themselves or radiated by having come into contact with those injured people. those medical personnel were all taken from the local hospital near the blast site and they themselves were transferred to moscow. so they could be treated. there were reports of an attempted evacuation of civilians from an
learn, how fantastically reckless and presumably ignorant they were about one of the most radioactive places on earth. the international atomic energy agency said today, that the head of the iaea is going to be the mission of nuclear experts to chernobyl sometime in the next two weeks. to try to assess how much damage was done by the russian occupation there. they say they re going to do quote, nuclear safety security and radiological assessments. of the site. and they re also going to try to set up new monitoring systems. to replace the was the russians all looted and stole, presumably without even knowing what they were for. yeah but all this is happening of course while the war is still underway in ukraine. while russia please hell-bent on taking over all of ukraine or least all of it that they can destroy enough to seize. and while the russian soldiers that occupy the chernobyl exclusion zone or out of there now, that s why the ap was able to get in there today. russian soldiers as
basically a mystery. it was definitely a little bit scary at the time. and even though this happened two and a half years ago now, it is something that still today hasn t ever really been fully explained. now tonight russia is facing new questions over the recent explosion at a missile testing site, after telling a nuclear monitoring group to stay out of it. we have more from nbc s bill neely. a growing mystery tonight about exactly what happened days after a nuclear explosion. killed five russian nuclear scientists. at least for radiation monitoring stations nearby went silent. and stop transmitting data. russia told international nuclear watchdog today, mind your own business. russia admitted radiation levels did spike briefly after the accident. which was tied to the testing of a nuclear missile engine. president putin said yesterday there is no threat. no risk of increased radiation.
now i mean, in russia is now there s even a free press to interrogate the government s claims. but even in countries with the three presidents are to get the truth out of governments about new experimental weapons. i mean we do know that state controlled media in russia wants the russian people today to believe that that missile test was the most important thing that happened in the world today. now we also know that the place they launch this new missile test today with the sight of another russian weapons test disaster back in 1980. a disaster that killed 50 people, a rocket exploded on the launching pad there while it was being fueled, 50 people were killed and russia kept its secret. the world did know about it until almost a decade later when westerners were brought in in 1989 to watch the satellite launch and the guy basically like leading the tour at the site, let it slip about the 50 men who were killed in the rocket disaster there back in 1980. was a not supposed to mention th