Well....days have passed and a fair number of imagery experts have looked over imagery of Chernobyl....to say now, 'yes, they were stupid enough to dig trenches and foxholes' around the contaminated area.
There is a particular area there which has the name of the 'Red Forest', and it's sort of a legendary thing. After the nuke accident.....trees in this forest died. Yes, from a significant amount of radiation. Some experts claim that in this Red Forest area....400 times the amount of radiation from Hiroshima occurred. So, yes....it's still pretty unsafe to hang out for days there.
So I noticed this chatter over the topic.....one local from Chernobyl stopped one morning and had a brief encounter with Russian soldiers....bringing up the 1986 event. Well....none of the group of Russians (probably all conscripts)....knew of the nuke plant incident.
Their general orders? Just to gain control of this local important infrastructure. That was the total knowledge of what they had.
My take? I think that the propaganda-style Russian news (since the 1980s) controlled a lot of events like this. It's quiet possible....unless you attended university, or had access to western friends/TV.....you probably never heard of Chernobyl's little nuke event.
As for the threat to the health? Well...if you were deployed and walking around with radioactive dust filling your lungs for a month....you probably got a fair dose and it may be months before you get to some recovery stage. Some who slept in the trenches? Those folks probably don't have long healthy lives to anticipate.
Responsibility cast upon the leadership? I'm not that convinced that the Russian Army over the past couple of decades have sought smart or capable people as military officers. Maybe the Captains and Majors asked questions....but the commanders might not have been bright enough to grasp the real impact of the site.
In the end.....you just shake your head. Yes, they were stupid enough to dig a good bit and a couple hundred guys are probably in some health crisis situation presently. Maybe someone will tell them about the nuclear incident....maybe they will just be told it's some local 'bug' and you will eventually get over it.
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