These April days Ukraine and the whole world commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident – one of the largest and most severe technological and environmental disasters in human history. Chernobyl became a bitter lesson that the "peaceful atom" does not forgive negligence and allows no mistakes. Seemingly tamed and obedient, it slipped out of human control, taking a huge number of lives and causing incredible damage to the environment for decades to come.
Today we remember those tragic events and honor the memory of hundreds of thousands of heroic liquidators who, at the cost of their own lives and health, stopped the spread of radiation, saving the future of coming generations.
From the first days of the accident, together with firefighters, military personnel, engineers, medics, and many others, scientists of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (then the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR) worked. Already at the beginning of May, the Headquarters of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR was established in the exclusion zone, expeditions and operational groups were active, commissions were created to develop measures to ensure the protection of the population, water purification, solving medical problems, mapping radiation-contaminated territories, and computer modeling of radiation spread. Practically all work in the accident zone required scientific support.
Overall, more than 2,000 employees from 42 scientific institutions and organizations of the NAS of Ukraine participated in solving problems related to the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster at various times. And today, looking back forty years, it can be confidently said that the scale of the disaster that occurred in 1986 was significantly reduced thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian scientists. Even now – four decades later – Academy scientists study the consequences of this fatal accident and work on overcoming them.
We thought that the horror of the Chernobyl disaster remained in the past and would never be repeated, and that the terrible lesson had been learned. However, the Russian occupation of the Chernobyl zone at the beginning of the full-scale armed invasion, the capture of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, as well as damage caused by a drone attack on the New Safe Confinement over the destroyed fourth power unit of the Chernobyl NPP at the beginning of 2025, once again threaten the safety of the entire continent and introduce the world to a new terrible phenomenon – nuclear terrorism.
I am confident that the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster is a signal to the world community to do everything possible to ensure that such a calamity never happens again on Earth and that nuclear energy is safe.
Today we bow our heads with great gratitude and deep respect to the hero liquidators. We admire their courage and self-sacrifice. Eternal memory to all whose lives were taken by this technological disaster.
I sincerely wish each of us to feel as little as possible the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, and that the events of distant 1986 never repeat. Health to all, peace, and a safe sky!
President
of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Academician of the NAS of Ukraine Anatoliy ZAHORODNIY