I think we've got as much to work on here as the poetry of Sappho - history is sometimes cruel with facts and denies us the nice clean resolution we all crave.

I think we've got as much to work on here as the poetry of Sappho - history is sometimes cruel with facts and denies us the nice clean resolution we all crave. A lot of the evidence in this case is confused and questionable and while I think that some theories are certainly less likely than others (the weapons test related theories seem far fetched given that there is any surviving evidence at all) I think this will sadly remain a mystery unless we manage to uncover more primary evidence at the site that can disprove certain accounts and narrow down on the truth. The USSR wasn't a monolithic evil big brother that could disappear people without anyone noticing - people did notice and we've got a lot of evidence of crimes that were supposed to go disappear in the wind. But a lot of evidence was intentionally tainted or manipulated for a wide variety of reasons. The only thing we're really certain of is that a lot of heads rolled at the time that were really unnecessary.