Putin’s Media Struggle to Deal With HBO’s Chernobyl

6/4/19
It seems every major Russian media outlet had to chime in about the “Chernobyl” TV series by HBO. Although the foreign program airs only online to paying viewers, the show has become something of a national sensation in Russia where the pro-Kremlin media have launched a mini-crusade against it. Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP), Russia’s most popular newspaper, raised suspicions that competitors of state-atomic center Rosatom were using the series to tarnish this country’s image as a nuclear power. Argumenty i Fakty, a newspaper popular among the elderly, dismissed the show as “a caricature and not the truth.” “The only things missing are the bears and accordions!” quipped Stanislav Natanzon, lead anchor of Rossia 24, one of the country’s main news channels. He pointed to shots showing modern storm windows on a building in Pripyat — that are only visible if you greatly enlarge the image — as evidence of shoddy film-making. It is an ordinary case of jealous resentment: “Only we have the right to talk about our history,” they say, “so don’t butt in.” However, the reception given “Chernobyl” says more about the critics than it does about the series. Thanks to the HBO series, many of my peers now have a different view of the Chernobyl accident. Whereas most disaster films culminate with the central catastrophe, only the first episode in this series is devoted to the Chernobyl reactor explosion. All the subsequent episodes focus on the harrowing and self-sacrificing struggle that the Soviet people waged against the consequences of the explosion. And it was these people who saved Europe — at the cost of their own lives and health. Watching this series provides at least a passing understanding of the hardships they endured in the process.

Russia, however, does not honor these individuals as heroes who saved Europe. Just go to the official Kremlin website to see how often President Vladimir Putin mentions the Chernobyl survivors — many of whom are still alive and suffer from a variety of radiation-induced illnesses. Putin’s sole references to them occur on the major anniversaries of the Chernobyl accident. He last mentioned them in 2016, on the 30th anniversary of the disaster, and again in 2011, on the 25th anniversary. Russia will never celebrate the Chernobyl events as a holiday — and if leaders cannot turn it into a fete of national pride and greatness, then better to forget that it ever happened at all. Still, an attempt will be made to put an entirely different spin on those events. Russia’s NTV channel has already announced that it is shooting its own “Chernobyl” series based on the premise that the CIA sent an agent to the Chernobyl zone to carry out acts of sabotage. In place of a moving tribute to the heroic men and women who sacrificed everything to overcome the fallout from the Chernobyl disaster, Moscow gives us a thrilling detective film based on a conspiracy theory in which a KGB officer struggles to thwart American spies — the new villains in this national tragedy. The fact that an American, not a Russian, TV channel tells us about our own heroes is a source of shame that the pro-Kremlin media apparently cannot live down. And this is the real reason they find fault with HBO’s “Chernobyl” series.

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Chagos said:

Haven't seen the series but if they even remotely address the utter incompetence that led to the disaster (displayed not only by the Chernobyl operators but more so by the Kremlin flunkies), no surprise that the Kremlin and its media minions are in uproar.

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Rogue Valley said:

Putin’s Media Struggle to Deal With HBO’s Chernobyl | The Moscow Times

The fact that an American, not a Russian, TV channel told the story about our own heroes is a source of shame for pro-Kremlin media.

The HBO mini-series "Chernobyl" is extraordinary and well worth a watch.

At odds with the Russia perspective, Ukraine honors the Chernobyl Liquidators as national (and European) heroes.

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Chagos said:

Haven't seen the series but if they even remotely address the utter incompetence that led to the disaster (displayed not only by the Chernobyl operators but more so by the Kremlin flunkies), no surprise that the Kremlin and its media minions are in uproar.

And that's not even addressing the incompetence displayed afterwards.

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Litwin said:

is it any chance for Belarus (which got 80- 90% of all Chernobyl radiation) to bring this case to Hague ? against Gorbachev and RF

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Rogue Valley said:

I doubt that Litwin. The Soviet Union (and its Politburo) no longer exists.

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Chagos said:

Haven't seen the series but if they even remotely address the utter incompetence that led to the disaster (displayed not only by the Chernobyl operators but more so by the Kremlin flunkies), no surprise that the Kremlin and its media minions are in uproar.

And that's not even addressing the incompetence displayed afterwards.

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Tanngrisnir said:

Oh, yeah, they do. I'm watching episode 3 tonight and thus far it's just incredibly accurate (according to some Russian friends) in depicting the slavish, suck-up obsequiousness that typified how things got done in the Soviet system.

NO ONE would accept responsibility (well, maybe Damien Harris) and EVERYONE in power denied reality ("YOU DID NOT SEE GRAPHITE THERE! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!")

The incompetence and venality are breathtaking.

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Rogue Valley said:

Addressing this, if it wasn't Chornobyl, it would have been somewhere else in the Soviet Union. The greatest flaw was the RBMK-1000 (High Power Channel-type Reactor) reactor design and its susceptibility to what is known as a positive void coefficient. No other nuclear reactors in the world can fall prey to this fatal flaw. In other nuclear reactors, the void coefficient is negative: more steam results in less reactivity. In the RBMK reactor it is the opposite: more steam results in higher reactivity. Once a positive void coefficient is present, a very exacting step process is required to return it to a neutral or a negative void coefficient. Unfortunately, this process was never fully explained to the operators of RBMK reactors by the Soviet Ministry of Small Machinery which designed the RBMK series of reactors. What transpired at Chornobyl reactor #4 was a test that was approved by Moscow and implemented to ascertain if the still rapidly spinning generating turbine fans could continue to pump water inside the reactor in the event of a facility power failure. This idea did work, but the test created a positive void coefficient in the reactor. Once the reactor operators [unintentionally] missed a critical step at the very beginning of the test to negate a positive void coefficient event, there was no feasible way to stop the ensuing cascade of events. The Chornobyl operators were not sure if the reactor was experiencing a positive void coefficient until it was too late and a core critical mass event was transpiring. The real culprits in the Chornobyl event were the RBMK-1000 designers back in Moscow who would not allow reactor flaws to sully their prized reputations as physicists and academicians. They never informed RBMK reactor users of the many flaws in this reactor series and the truth only came out during Politburo inquests following the Chornobyl disaster. So as to not damage the global reputation of Russian physics, Gorbachev allowed these design individuals to quietly retire without recrimination although the global scientific world had figured out what had gone wrong at Chornobyl and why.

P.S. Such an event cannot again occur in any of Ukraine's current 18 (20 planned) VVER (Water-Water Power Reactor) nuclear reactors. These reactors are different than the RBMK series. They have all been (and continue to be) overhauled, modified, and updated by Energoatom (Ukraine), Areva (France), and Westinghouse (US), and re-certified by Euratom.

Main control room of the Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine nuclear power plant -- Europe's largest. (picture is a bit dated judging by the clunky desk monitors)

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In interviews around the release of HBO’s “Chernobyl,” screenwriter and show creator Mazin insisted that his mini-series would stick to the facts. "I defer to the less dramatic version of things,” Mazin said, adding, “you don’t want to cross a line into the sensational."

In truth, “Chernobyl” runs across the line into sensational in the first episode and never looks back.

In one episode, three characters dramatically volunteer to sacrifice their lives to drain radioactive water, but no such event occurred.

“The three men were members of the plant staff with responsibility for that part of the power station and on shift at the time the operation began,” notes Adam Higginbotham, author of, Midnight in Chernobyl, a well-researched new history. “They simply received orders by telephone from the reactor shop manager to open the valves.”

Nor did radiation from the melted reactor contribute to the crash of a helicopter, as is strongly suggested in “Chernobyl.” There was a helicopter crash but it took place six months later and had nothing to do with radiation. One of the helicopter’s blades hit a chain dangling from a construction crane.

The most egregious of “Chernobyl” sensationalism is the depiction of radiation as contagious, like a virus. The scientist-hero played by Emily Watson physically drags away the pregnant wife of a Chernobyl firefighter dying from Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS).

Why HBO's "Chernobyl" Gets Nuclear So Wrong

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Tanngrisnir said:

Oh, yeah, they do. I'm watching episode 3 tonight and thus far it's just incredibly accurate (according to some Russian friends) in depicting the slavish, suck-up obsequiousness that typified how things got done in the Soviet system.

NO ONE would accept responsibility (well, maybe Damien Harris) and EVERYONE in power denied reality ("YOU DID NOT SEE GRAPHITE THERE! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!!")

The incompetence and venality are breathtaking.

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bongsaway said:

What struck me about the series is how everyone seemed absolutely scared to death about how their particular superior would react. Everyone was playing the cover your own arse game. Facts which were known before the disaster were ignored because the 'higher ups' didn't want to know and it was cheaper to build that particular type of unsafe reactor than to spend the money to build a safer model. Money once again was more important than human lives.

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ThirdTerm said:

HBO’s “Chernobyl” is so sensationalized that it does not stick to the facts from the very first episode, which is quite similar to how another HBO series about Michael Jackson was made based on unsubstantiated speculations. For instance, the crash of a helicopter caused by radiation from the melted reactor was faked in the documentary. The crash actually took place six months later and had nothing to do with radiation.

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bongsaway said:

What struck me about the series is how everyone seemed absolutely scared to death about how their particular superior would react. Everyone was playing the cover your own arse game. Facts which were known before the disaster were ignored because the 'higher ups' didn't want to know and it was cheaper to build that particular type of unsafe reactor than to spend the money to build a safer model. Money once again was more important than human lives.

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Tanngrisnir said:

YEP! I actually had the great misfortune to live in Moscow for about a year in the earlyish 90s. That mindset was everywhere.

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bongsaway said:

What struck me about the series is how everyone seemed absolutely scared to death about how their particular superior would react. Everyone was playing the cover your own arse game. Facts which were known before the disaster were ignored because the 'higher ups' didn't want to know and it was cheaper to build that particular type of unsafe reactor than to spend the money to build a safer model. Money once again was more important than human lives.

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Litwin said:

"unsafe reactor " this reactor was taken from a submarine .

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Rogue Valley said:

Chornobyl nuclear disaster was tragedy in the making, declassified KGB files show

The 32 KGB documents relevant to Chornobyl.....

Чорнобильська трагедія – злочин радянської влади. Документи Архіву СБУ (Russian language)

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Acadia said:

I'm wataching Episode #4 now. Thanks to all for sharing their knowledge-- it really helps me appreciate Chernobyl as i go along.

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Yelsy said:

I believe that the series from the HBO on Chernobyl is really a masterpiece. For a very long time, we knew little about this tragedy, but the series reminds us of this disaster, which is important not only for Ukraine, Russia and Belerusia, but for the whole world. I don't consider it necessary to shoot adapted series on this topic, because I believe that this will be an attempt to change the story. When I found out that Chernobyl tours exist, I decided that I really want to visit this place. I think I can learn a little more about the city of Pripyat and the Chernobyl tragedy from the guide, something that wasn't told about in the series. It seems to me that it will be a very gloomy, but very exciting trip.

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