Russian Troops Suffer From Acute Radiation Sickness

| April 1, 2022


Ferris Wheel of Pripyat

On 26 April 1986 an experiment on Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4’s emergency water cooling system caused an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. The resulting over-pressures blasted the roof off the reactor, releasing plumes of radioactive steam and burning debris.

Several seconds later a second explosion hurled out additional burning radioactive material. A fire started at the roof of Reactor No. 3, risking a breach at that facility. Automatic safety systems had been shut down prior to the test.

The damaged plant released an enormous quantity of radioactive substances, including iodine-131, cesium-137, plutonium and strontium-90 into the air for over a 10 day period.

The Chernobyl accident left behind a huge area of radiation-poisoned land. A 770-mile-wide Chernobyl Exclusion Zone around the site isn’t considered safe for human habitation, and won’t be for some 24,000 years.

Russian military forces took control of the facility on the first day of the invasion.

Poetrooper sends.

Russian soldiers disturbed radioactive dust at Chernobyl; didn’t wear protective gear, workers say: report

The power plant was the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster, considered to be the worst in history, a few years before the collapse of the Soviet Union

By Louis Casiano | Fox News

Russian forces have kicked up radioactive dust and disturbed a highly toxic zone around the area of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site known as the “Red Forest” since capturing the defunct power plant early on in its invasion of Ukraine, workers at the site said.

Reuters spoke with workers who said Russian soldiers in a convoy did not use anti-radiation gear and inhaled toxic dust that will most likely cause internal radiation in their bodies. In the weeks after Russia took the site on Feb. 24, soldiers were still not wearing any protective gear, they said.

Two workers were on duty when Russian forces took control of the Chernobyl power plant, the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster that’s considered the worst in history and became an international embarrassment for the Soviet Union. The Red Forest, a small area surrounding the power plant, is still highly contaminated.

In the days since Moscow captured the plant, the workers told the news outlet they saw Russian armored vehicles and tanks moving through the forest, which got its name from the vast amounts of radiation that turned the trees red. One Russian soldier allegedly told them that he’d never heard of the 1986 disaster.

Fox News

Another stunning example of Russian military leadership. They’re just conscripts, da tovarishch? More here: New York Post

Thanks Poe.

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Russia, Ukraine

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KoB

Again, I have sympathies for the people that are being used as “cannon fodder” and, now, geiger counters by the power mad despots. “…never heard of the 1986 disaster.” Another example of what can happen when you suppress/don’t teach history.

The power mad despots don’t wake up and quit being stoopid, the whole world may be uninhabitable for 24K years.

Anonymous

Also, execution decision-making centralized in Moscow, too:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russias-war-lacks-battlefield-commander-115751753.html

5JC

If you are product of the Russian Public School Systems the most important thing that happened on 26 April 1986 is that your parents shared their first kiss while listening to Shine, Shine My Star, under a Siberian Larch.

UpNorth

The oligarchs don’t want informed peasants. What could possibly go wrong with tanks and BMPs churning up radioactive soil?

Roh-Dog

The never-dying radiation myth, ffs. I bet y’all believe in spheroid earth too.

FOOLS!

(low-key, I wish Generals would stop gathering in their masses…)

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KoB

Pie are NOT square…Pie are round! Casseroles are square. Can’t change my mind.

5JC

Were he alive, Gordon Balfours could.

Ex-PH2

Beg to differ, KoB. Casserorles can be ovals, too. They are flexible in nature, unlike Russian oligarchs.

Sapper3307

A non SAPPER approved minefield breach.
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Sapper3307

Proper training and battle drills to enter The Zone.
NRFYHyEtH_4

President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande

And we Americans thought our public Gooberment schools weren’t teaching anything. I guess that’s one similarity that the US & the Russkies have in common.
Not to mention the Russkie NCO “leadership” (up and down) not prepping their conscripts for anything hazardous.

Not true the Los Angeles School System teaches all kind of stuff. It teaches that Tomanaris has two daddys that are guest workers and no baby mommas. Therefore he won’t get child support payments from anyone. To compensate for this he gets a personally autographed crack pipe from Hunter Biden and his choice of any of 164 genders (or he can make his own). The police are stone killers of people of color and because of this he can also commit the felony of his choice and get a free get out of jail card.

And that is just what he learned in Kindergarten.

Actually, the Chernobyl accident was huge news in Russia as confirmed by my Health Physics (HP) friends who went and helped the Russians with the whole problem. HPs from all over world went and helped. Because of the ignorance of radiation, the people (intervenors) whom the Russians forced into cleaning up the mess were shunned by their own and the entire population of Russia. I would bet dollars to donuts that that is still going on. It is pure propaganda or speculation that the Russian soldiers wouldn’t have knowledge or training on radiation hazards, especially those who were assigned to take Chernobyl.

By the way, “conscripts” has the exact same meaning as our use of the word “draftees”. From reports I am reading, Russia is using their draftees pretty much so as we use them – not a lot.

John Seabee

Kool. Now that they glow, the Ukrainians can shoot them in the dark.

aGrimm

John, I know you are being humorous, but wouldn’t the Ukrainians in the area also be “glowing” in the dark?

Anonymous

They know enough to stay out of the Red Forest and not dig a hole & live in it while eating MREs there for a month.

HT3

I battled Russian Forces there in Call of Duty 3 (2 or 3 can’t remember), but I’m not surprised that soldiers may not have heard about the incident. The handing out NBC/CBR suits would have been the tip-off that “something happened to some people”. The only difference between the USSR and the Russian Federation is who has all the money/power. It sure is not the masses.

A Proud Infidel®™

Life very cheapski in Russian Army, now learn Russian schools no teach what happened in the 1980s! Now the Conscripts are going to pay a hellish price for the stupidity and incompetence of their upper echelons.

Last edited 1 year ago by A Proud Infidel®™
Graybeard

Life has always been cheapski in Ruski army, or “civilization”.

Last edited 1 year ago by Graybeard
aGriim

I’m always late to these postings because I get up too late. Anyway, your resident Health Physicist is here to set things straight.

Seriously, “…Acute Radiation Sickness”? Propaganda. The Ukrainian propaganda about the Russians being incompetent is getting more ridiculous every day.

The dose of radiation you need to get to experience acute radiation sickness starts at about 600 REM. This level is where the Hiroshima victims first developed the sickness. It is a massive amount of radiation. The Russian soldiers would have needed to be digging trenches inside the Chernobyl tomb to get this amount of radiation.

The Russians stripped the topsoil from a goodly portion of the area. There are well marked exclusion zones within the Chernobyl area (confirmed by HP friends of mine who have been there). However, the flora and fauna, including burrowing animals, in these areas are flourishing and not dying from acute radiation sickness nor any radiation related problems.

aGrim

Quick follow-up: Chernobyl exclusion zone = a circle of 19 miles. The radiation levels are maxxed at 40 times background radiation or roughly 120 m
Sv/year. Ramsar, Iran has levels of 250 mSv/yr with no excess cancer mortality rates. The Russian soldiers better eat a heck of a lot of contaminated soil to get to the acute radiation syndrome stage.

5JC

No. It was initially a 30Km (19M) circle and is now about 1000 square miles.

Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone

The Red Forrest where the soldiers allegedly were digging is 20Km from the reactor and highly contaminated.

You may also be mixing mili vs micro Sieverts. Ramsar has 250 Milis while the Red Forrest has been noted to have up to 10 Micros in places …about 40 times higher.

Last edited 1 year ago by 5JC
TopGoz

Milli- (m) are thousandths, micro- (μ) is millionths, so maybe you got it backward. 250 mSv/yr is 25,000 times 10μSv/yr.

aGrim

Correct. For those not normally using the metric system, a millimeter is 1/1,000th of a meter and a micrometer is 1/1,000,000 of a meter. The same applies to sieverts.

aGrim

Not sure what you are trying to argue with the exclusion zone, but as I said: the exclusion zone is a 19 mile radius which is a 30+ Km radius. And yes, a 19 mile circle is 1,234 square miles. So we agree.

I did not mix up anything. I am going to presume you are using sieverts (Sv) for your exposure numbers. The small m (milli-) prefix indicates millisieverts (mSv). A small u prefix indicates a micro amount, e.g., uSv (microsieverts). All the numbers I cited are in mSv. The US average background radiation is approximately 3mSv/yr. 40 times 3 = 120 mSv/yr for the exclusion zone. Ramsar at 250 mSv/yr is 80 times higher than the U.S. average background. Ramsar has no discernible long-term effects such as cancer.

There is no way that 40mSv/yr is going to have any immediate physiological effect. At that rate, it is extremely difficult, to impossible, to even determine long term effects because any effect is so small.

5JC

You clearly didn’t read the article or look at the map. It isn’t a circle, not even close and no it isn’t 1234 miles it is about 1000 miles so we don’t agree and isn’t even close.

aGrim

Go to a math conversion site for radius to sq-miles: 1,234sq miles is the conversion of a 19-mile radius. I did not look at the map as my old eyes have trouble reading that small a print, nor did the article point to the map, though it did make a vague reference that the area was enlarged.
This argument is irrelevant to the main point: the potential exposure is so small it poses no risks to anyone.

Anonymous

How much is that in cGy/Roentgens/RADs? (Pardon, I’m old… )

Anonymous

From FM 44-44 (Avenger platoon ops) Appendix H:

th.jpeg-1.jpg
Last edited 1 year ago by Anonymous
Anonymous

Cold War dose levels in cGy are about risk of getting sick/dying now while modern mSv standards are focused upon elevated risk of getting cancer 25 or so years on, I realize.

I’m just looking at the terms I know (see graphic above) and going “How the heck much is that in mSv?” when people start talking about Sieverts.

TopGoz

1 Sv = 100 rem (biological equivalent dose); 1 Gray = 100 rads (radiation absorbed dose); 1cGy = 0.01Gy (1/100 Gray) = 1 rem.
250mSv/yr = 25,000mrem/yr (25 rem/yr). The allowable occupational whole body dose in the US is only 5 rem/yr.

Last edited 1 year ago by TopGoz
Anonymous

So… 1 cGy = .01 Sv and 100 cGy = 1 Sv ?

Making sure.

TopGoz

Not quite. Sievert is the unit of biological dose equivalent and is derived by multiplying the absorbed dose, measured in Gray, by the radiation weighting factor (Wr) which varies depending upon the type of ionizing radiation. For example, 1 Gray of Alpha Particle dose (Wr = x20) is 20 Sievert of dose equivalent; whereas 1 Gray of Gamma rays (Wr = x1) is 1 Sievert of dose equivalent.

Last edited 1 year ago by TopGoz
aGrim

Dang, TopGoz, you know your stuff. Nice! A fellow geek.

To answer Anonymous: 40 mSv is the same as 0.4 cGy. (If I did the math right)

Per TopGoz’s explanation above, and because the radiation in the exclusion zone is likely mostly from CS-137 (a gamma emitter), then Gy and Sv can be used interchangably here (though a good Health Physicist will slap me). Hence this amount is well below anything on the chart.

Anonymous

Just trying to match mSv standards to cGy standards to see what’s “bad” today because tolerance for dangerous stuff is lower though dying from it hasn’t changed much.

th.jpeg-3.jpg
Anonymous

This out today:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-blunders-chernobyl-came-did-140238502.html

Russkies not only dug in the Red Forest but used earthmoving equipment, lived in said holes for almost a month and set fire to a part of it, ignored not only the Ukrainian plant experts but their own NBC unit as well, and focused upon looting things including a dude who carried off a Cobalt-60 hunk and probably sterilized himself before he got 500 meters.

poetrooper

Even though young Poe was a battalion and brigade CBR NCO, all that training was so long ago that ol’ Poe doesn’t feel qualified to participate in that aspect of the discussion.

However, has anybody else noticed the significant age difference between Russian troops and Ukranian troops in the videos coming from both sides but primarily the Ukes?

In almost every video of Russian troops, the privates all look like pale, scrawny, scared-to-death teenagers while in virtually every video of Uke ground troops, they are not only older and much more mature in appearance, they are also big, burly, fearsome looking dudes, for the most part, and confident as hell.

It’s not difficult to imagine the fear the young Russians must experience when going up against such a physically imposing foe in a firefight that may involve close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat.

poetrooper

In ol’ Poe’s opinion, the Russians have a lot more to worry about than irradiated troops. The exposure to the watching world of their military ineptitude and incompetence has to be being closely watched by the rulers and military leaders of many nations that border their vast country.

And the one they have to be most concerned about is that militarily growing Red Dragon on their southeast flank. While all the pundits are predicting a move on Taiwan by China, Taiwan is nothing as a lucrative, strategic target compared to eastern Siberia, where an obviously troubled and over-extended Russian force supposedly guards tens of thousands of square miles of natural resources that the Chinese covet.

Taiwan pales by comparison, and, based on what we’ve seen from Russia in Ukraine, would probably put up a harder fight than the Russians.

Time will tell…

A Proud Infidel®™

By now I wonder if the CCP Military is just as if not more incompetent that the Russian Military?