Looking back at Chernobyl offers one way to understand Russia today. The same security elite – which arose out of the KGB and now includes the FSB, SVR and GRU – still rules the country. President Vladimir Putin and the KGB veterans close to him often refer to the Soviet past with nostalgia. But they do so selectively, avoiding truths that indict their own systems. Their vision is clouded by the same habits of concealment and self-deception that ruined the USSR.
The central lesson of Chernobyl is simple: lies have consequences. The Soviet system was built on them. From Stalin onwards, “Five-Year Plans” set unrealistic production targets divorced from reality. Workers and managers learned to fabricate success rather than report failure. The result was a giant Potemkin facade – an economy and state that rested on perceived performance rather than truth. Eventually, like Catherine the Great’s village of the same name, the façade collapsed.
That culture proved fatal at Chernobyl. As Adam Higginbottom points out in his seminal work, Midnight in Chernobyl, bureaucratic pressure and blind obedience led operators to conduct dangerously flawed tests. Security systems were disabled and key processes were ignored. The goal was not security, but approval from superiors in a rigid, abusive chain of command. Everyone was trying to get ahead in the corrupt, feudal-like Soviet system.
What’s worse, operators were working in the dark, literally and figuratively. The RBMK reactor used at the Chernobyl plant (four of them at the time were providing energy to the greater Kiev area) had a known design flaw: its control rods, meant to slow or stop the nuclear reaction, could initially increase reactivity when inserted under certain conditions. This defect almost led to disaster during the first tests in Leningrad. But it was hidden not only from the public, but also from many people within the Soviet nuclear establishment.
The reason was simple: RBMK reactors were a symbol of Soviet technological prowess. They were bigger than the West, more secure than the West, impossible to explode or compromise. Admitting flaws risked reduced production, reputational damage, and political consequences. So the truth was suppressed.
On the night of April 26, 1986, that hidden truth came to light horrifyingly. When operators attempted to shut down the reactor, the control rods accelerated the reaction. All protections were removed for “meeting the test” and allowing the bureaucrats in charge to receive Soviet-style bonuses and promotions. And with a hidden flaw, the very system designed to ensure security exploded.
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It is an apt metaphor for the Soviet state and its successor Russia. The institutions that were meant to protect the system destroyed it, because they were built on secrecy and lies.
Today’s Russia reflects the same pattern. The security services – once the KGB, now its successors in the FSB/SVR/GRU – have not reformed as much as they have evolved. Their main task remains the same: to preserve power through control of information and to protect the state and its personality in Vladimir Putin. But in doing so, they distort reality as much for themselves as for others.
That dynamic was evident in the invasion of Ukraine. Russian military and intelligence leaders presented optimistic, often inaccurate, assessments up the chain of command. The FSB and other “organs” of power told President Putin exactly what he expected to hear – as Soviet officials had done for decades. The result was a disastrous miscalculation: the largest land offensive in Europe since World War II, launched on faulty assumptions of a short, decisive war. More than 1 million people were killed and injured in Russia due to failed forecasts.
Then, the lies spread more lies. And again, the results were disastrous. The parallels to Chernobyl are not merely abstract. They are all extremely humanitarian and have had, and continue to have, devastating humanitarian consequences for millions of Ukrainians and Russians.
In 1986, the city of Pripyat – just a few miles from the reactor – was not evacuated for 36 hours. Thousands of people were exposed to dangerous radiation. Thousands of them, including children, will die of cancer. The fallout spread throughout Belarus, Lithuania, and beyond. My own wife, like countless others, spent her days as a youth school “pioneer” in Lithuania during school holidays and after school, unknowingly breathing in radioactive particles without any warning from the Soviet leadership. Citizens in Europe and Scandinavia were warned to avoid going out ahead of Soviet citizens thousands of kilometers away in danger.
May Day celebrations were held as scheduled in Kiev and Minsk, with no regard for the safety and health of their citizens, while radioactive particles and particulates fell upon them. Decades later, those same hundreds of thousands face increased cancer risk and lifelong medical monitoring (especially thyroid cancer, the greatest risk from radiation absorbed in such conditions). Hundreds of thousands, even millions, were exposed unnecessarily, for no reason other than lies.
A state that does not protect its children disregards the laws of nature. Russia today is the state that the USSR was then.
The true human cost of Chernobyl will never be fully known. In order to measure this accurately, secrecy was greatly compromised in the Soviet system. The same disregard for truth and human life is heard in Ukraine today. Entire cities have been destroyed. Lakhs of people were displaced. Damage, like radiation, spreads invisibly and persists long after the initial incident.
There is also a bitter irony in Chernobyl’s continued relevance. The disaster directly contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union – what Putin has called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” The financial burden of cleanup, combined with the already strained military economy, accelerated the disintegration of the system. The Soviet state, already trying to keep up in the arms race and devoting more than half its economy to military production, was burdened by a massive purge, involving hundreds of thousands of conscripts and volunteers and billions of rubles.
And yet, the actual site of the disaster remains a threat. Recently, a Russian drone attacked the new Secure Containment Structure (NSC) built to control the reactor. The attack caused significant damage and once again posed the threat of radiation spread. That such a goal would be jeopardized – by the same state that has inherited responsibility for the disaster, Russia, and whose own citizens could be endangered – is beyond reason. But it follows a familiar pattern: short-term action detracts from long-term consequences. Again, the Ukrainian people are victimized and put at risk just as they were 40 years ago; And in the midst of an already costly war with untold suffering brought about by Putin and his lies.
Chernobyl is not just history. This is a warning. This lesson is not limited to nuclear security or Soviet bureaucracy. It is broader and more permanent: systems built on lies accumulate hidden risks. Those risks eventually surface – often suddenly, and disastrously.
Forty years ago, the Soviet Union could not escape the consequences of its own deception. Today Russia is also facing a similar situation. The same habits persist: suppressing bad realities, rewarding loyalty over truth, and mistaking control for stability. But reality has a way of expressing itself.
As the Chernobyl (HBO) series memorably said: “Every lie owes a debt to the truth.” That loan may be delayed, hidden, or denied. But it cannot be erased. The question is not whether it will be paid or not, the question is when and at what price it will be paid. Putin has surrounded Russia with more lies than any leader in modern Russian or Soviet history. But they have no responsibility for this. Someone will have to repay the debt. Sadly, neither Putin, nor the security services will pay, but ultimately, as in Soviet times, the Russian people will pay.
All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position or views of the US Government. Nothing in the material should be interpreted as asserting or implying certification of the information by the U.S. Government or endorsement of the author’s views.
