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> Except, of course, that the story about the Russian soldiers in Chornobyl was completely made up. There are satellite photos of trenches dug around the red f

> Except, of course, that the story about the Russian soldiers in Chornobyl was completely made up. There are satellite photos of trenches dug around the red forest where Russian soldiers had deployed?

littlestymaar 4y ago
The made up story was talking about those soldiers getting radiation sickness (which requires radiation levels millions time higher than the one you'd find there). If the Russian soldiers get problems from their trench digging endeavor, it won't be seen before many years, when a small percentage of them starts getting cancer. (needless to say, the increases mortality from the said cancers will be negligible compared to the mortality induced by being invading soldiers in Ukraine).
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Your blazée atittude on radiation safety reminds me of Homer Simpson. There is no way to know what radiation dose they got. Their activities increased the ambient radiation levels, but not extremely. But the soldiers themselves probably got quite a bit more since they came into direct contact with contaminated material. A few of them almost certainly got non-trivial doses on parts of their bodies. We don't know if any got radiation sickness, and I don't know of any source that said so. If they did, Russia would keep it quiet. The point of the story is that such a site remains a problem for millenia and people have to pay attention. If you don't want the dirt to travel further, you have to somehow remove it and store it more safely to keep it from circulating. That's what they are doing in Fukushima because they can't afford the same size of permanent exclusion zone. Another point is that the Russians put their artillery pieces near nuclear power plants. They discovered that the Ukrainians wouldn't shoot back when they fire from there. Funny that.
  - littlestymaar 4y ago
    > There is no way to know what radiation dose they got. […] We don't know if any got radiation sickness We cannot know an exact figure for that, but we know they cannot by any means get radiation sickness, because the radiation level that it would have need is many orders of magnitude higher than what can be found there. You have no idea of how tall I am, but you can be 100% certain that I'm lying if I pretend I'm two thousand kilometers tall! (that's the order of magnitude we're talking about) > The point of the story is that such a site remains a problem for millenia and people have to pay attention. This sentence is still wrong. Cesium 137 half-life is around 30 years. In 300 years, the amount remaining would be 1000 times lower than it currently is. In 900 years, that's 1 billion lower, which means that almost every single atom will be gone. > Another point is that the Russians put their artillery pieces near nuclear power plants. They discovered that the Ukrainians wouldn't shoot back when they fire from there. Funny that. Obviously nobody wants to destroy a nuclear plant, and no-one said a nuclear plant accident wasn't bad, it's just far from the pop-culture depiction of it. It doesn't last for millennia and doesn't cause a mushroom cloud either. Talking about artillery, you know what last for millennia, leaving empty exclusion zones no-one talks about? Contamination from artillery shells: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge Given that both sides are using uranium-based APFSDS munitions, we'll more likely see more radiation-induced casualties from exposure to depleted uranium than from people digging in the red forest, or even maybe more than from the fallout of Chornobyl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Iraqi_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Iraqi_populat...

littlestymaar 4y ago

The made up story was talking about those soldiers getting radiation sickness (which requires radiation levels millions time higher than the one you'd find there). If the Russian soldiers get problems from their trench digging endeavor, it won't be seen before many years, when a small percentage of them starts getting cancer. (needless to say, the increases mortality from the said cancers will be negligible compared to the mortality induced by being invading soldiers in Ukraine).

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Your blazée atittude on radiation safety reminds me of Homer Simpson. There is no way to know what radiation dose they got. Their activities increased the ambient radiation levels, but not extremely. But the soldiers themselves probably got quite a bit more since they came into direct contact with contaminated material. A few of them almost certainly got non-trivial doses on parts of their bodies. We don't know if any got radiation sickness, and I don't know of any source that said so. If they did, Russia would keep it quiet. The point of the story is that such a site remains a problem for millenia and people have to pay attention. If you don't want the dirt to travel further, you have to somehow remove it and store it more safely to keep it from circulating. That's what they are doing in Fukushima because they can't afford the same size of permanent exclusion zone. Another point is that the Russians put their artillery pieces near nuclear power plants. They discovered that the Ukrainians wouldn't shoot back when they fire from there. Funny that.
- littlestymaar 4y ago
  > There is no way to know what radiation dose they got. […] We don't know if any got radiation sickness We cannot know an exact figure for that, but we know they cannot by any means get radiation sickness, because the radiation level that it would have need is many orders of magnitude higher than what can be found there. You have no idea of how tall I am, but you can be 100% certain that I'm lying if I pretend I'm two thousand kilometers tall! (that's the order of magnitude we're talking about) > The point of the story is that such a site remains a problem for millenia and people have to pay attention. This sentence is still wrong. Cesium 137 half-life is around 30 years. In 300 years, the amount remaining would be 1000 times lower than it currently is. In 900 years, that's 1 billion lower, which means that almost every single atom will be gone. > Another point is that the Russians put their artillery pieces near nuclear power plants. They discovered that the Ukrainians wouldn't shoot back when they fire from there. Funny that. Obviously nobody wants to destroy a nuclear plant, and no-one said a nuclear plant accident wasn't bad, it's just far from the pop-culture depiction of it. It doesn't last for millennia and doesn't cause a mushroom cloud either. Talking about artillery, you know what last for millennia, leaving empty exclusion zones no-one talks about? Contamination from artillery shells: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge Given that both sides are using uranium-based APFSDS munitions, we'll more likely see more radiation-induced casualties from exposure to depleted uranium than from people digging in the red forest, or even maybe more than from the fallout of Chornobyl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Iraqi_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Iraqi_populat...