← Chris Distefano Presents: Chrissy Chaos
Chris Distefano Presents: Chrissy Chaos
Chernobyl’s Nuclear Nightmare: Chaos, Cover-Ups, and Courage
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Chris Di Stefano
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two factor authentication, strong passwords and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year make visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off terms apply. Hello, everyone, my name is Chris Di Stefano and this is Christeries. Welcome to Crista. He is today. Okay, today we're going to talk about the worst nuclear disaster in history. And we're not talking about Hiroshima because nothing America does is the worst. We're talking about the kgb, Russian secrets, Wild Radioactive Mistakes, and one of the best shows I've seen on hbo, Max. We're talking Chernobyl, baby. The Chernobyl Explosion. I'm Chrissy. Chernobyl. Radioactive glue. All right, let's set the stage. We're in the USSR. This is April 1986. I was just a two year old boy. USSR, remember? This is before right now you just have Russia, but back then you had all these countries together. Like where? The usa. They were the ussr. Okay. And we would, I would play against them a lot in Street Fighter. So Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union at that time, okay. That's why there's a lot of problems today. So it was not an independent country, yet it did become one in 1991 when the USSR eventually fell, communism fell and all that, and the Ukraine went off to do its own thing, have their own independent country, and there's no problems with that today. Russia's okay, right? No, they're not. So Ukraine is one of the many, many, many countries that they get its power from nuclear power plants. Okay? So that a lot, you know, nuclear energy is just a thing that this, a lot of countries in this world run on. So Ukraine has nuclear power plants kind of everywhere. Now, some countries chose not to use nuclear energy because it's expensive, risky, and they want to do solar, wind or water power. But Ukraine, nuclear. So let me do a quick science one on one to set the stage and tell you how power plants work and how they use the electricity, generate power to our homes. Okay? So a nuclear power plant is a place where electricity is made using nuclear energy. Okay? Inside the plant there are these special machines called reactors. The reactors use uranium. Uranium's radioactive material. Okay? It's a lot of uranium all over the World uranium. And they create heat through a process called nuclear fission. Okay, so we got the reactors taking the uranium, which is radioactive, heating it up through this process called nuclear fission. And then the heat boils water to make steam. And that steam is what spins the big turbines that generate electricity. Okay, so that's how it is. So we got reactors take the uranium process called nuclear fission, heat it up, boil the water, make steam, and then, boom, you get electricity. It's like a super powerful steam engine. Like you've seen those steam engine boats, you know, going down the Mississippi. It's like that, but with a nuke attached to it. And instead of burning coal or gas, it gets the energy from splitting atoms. Whoa. So they're important nuclear power plants because in our world, they can help make a lot of electricity, which we desperately, desperately need, without burning fossil fuels like coal or gas. Okay, so we don't want to burn the fossil fuels. We want to save the dinosaur bones, which a lot of people, by the way, think fossil fuels was just made up by the Rockefellers and that that's not real at all, and that we are not burning dinosaur bones to make power. And it's just a. But that's a story for another day. So these nuclear power plants, they create all this energy and they power everything. Your home, your school, cities, cell phones, anything you want. And they don't release carbon dioxide, so they help fight climate change. So that is why Greta Thornburg is for the nukes. And they reduce our need for oil, coal, gas. You know, all that stuff pollutes the air. You don't want dirty air. You. You want clean air nukes. But obviously they come with a lot of risks. I mean, what's the biggest risk? You know, nuclear fallout? Radiation. Folks, that's not what you want. What is radiation? Let's think about it. What is radiation? Radiation is energy that travels through space as waves or particles, and it can be harmless or very harmful. It depends. Now, we have safe. We experience safe, low levels of radiation every day. They call it background radiation. I mean, they tell us it's safe today, but who knows? The sun, the ground, natural minerals, air. There's a little radion gas in small amounts. Food. Bananas. Bananas have radiation because they have potassium 40. And then you got X rays, microwaves, radio waves, all in small doses with protection. But, I mean, don't eat too many bananas. Yeah, I actually went to go get a physical the other day, and I had to get a colonoscopy, and the doctor asked me why I had potassium 40 in my ass. And I said bananas. The dangerous types of radiation, not banana radiation, are ionizing radiation. So the radiation in bananas, background radiation, no problemo. Ionizing radiation. This is a problemo. Gamma rays, X rays. In high doses, radiation is from nuclear accidents because they damage cells and DNA. So this is why, you know, you're not supposed to get a bunch of X rays because you do get a relatively high dose of that. So you just don't want to get the cells damaged. You don't want to get the DNA damage because your DNA is the. That's me. That's who you are. I'm me because of my DNA. And our DNA is very close to every other animal. It's just a little. Few things are off. Just a couple of X's and O's can make you a human being or a pig. Now, when radiation leaks, it becomes harmful. Invisible energy escapes into the air, water, ground. You don't even know. It's just out there. And this kind of exposure goes uncontrolled, gets very dangerous for people, okay? And that's why they take a lot of care for nuclear facilities. They have them buried underground. They have them as safe as safe can be because any type of leak going to kill a lot of people, and there's really no escaping it. So people, if you get these high levels of radiation, you get radiation sickness, which nausea, hair loss, skin burn, and death in extreme cases. And we're going to get to death when we get to the Chernobyl explosion because I said it damages the cells in the DNA leads, cancer, birth defects. It's like, that's why when you drop a nuclear weapon on someone, it's. Yes, the blast itself is awful, but, you know, people, still to this day, scientists believe people get sick in Hiroshima and have birth defects and problems because of the nuke that was dropped in the 40s. Bad news. And also all your animals and plants suffer. Don't forget that. So it's not just. It's not just humans. The food that you're consuming also gets messed up. It's not safe to live there for decades because radiation stays in the soil, buildings, just, you know, it's everywhere for a long time. It just does not go away. All right, so I just want to give you guys a little background on nuclear radiation and power plants and why it's important and why they're even there in the first place. Because, you know, I didn't really know that much either until I was researching it. So what we're gonna do now is we're Gonna go to a little place in Ukraine, a little time known as 1986, where the Mets won the World series. And we're gonna take you to a town 80 miles north of Kiev called Chernobyl. Big explosion, huge. April 26, 1986. They had a routine safety test at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. And then things went bad. The plant had four reactors. Okay, Remember, reactors use uranium radioactive material to create heat. So the test supposedly very routine, right? You know, it was all good. Just, you know, the plant director didn't even show up. He was like, I will not go. I will come all the time and there is no problem. Instead, I will smoke cigarette and wrestle there. The safety test began at 1:23 in the morning on April 26, 1986. And you know, nothing really good happens after midnight. That's what they say. After midnight you should just go home. And these boys should have done this test a little bit early in the day because people were sleepy, they were drunk and God knows. So engineers, they start this test, the final steps of the test. Everything's going good and then they're pressing their buttons. And then they have to cut power to the reactor to see if the backed up backup systems could keep the core cool. Within seconds, things got out of control. Unexpected power surge and steam buildup causes an explosion in reactor number four. This is the main one, reactor numero cuatro. First explosion, it blows the heavy steel and concrete lid off the reactor. I mean, that's how much power is coming through. It just blows, blew the lid right off the roof. Came off a few seconds later. A second explosion followed, probably because there was a mix of hydrogen gas and air which caused blow ups. And then these blasts threw out burning radioactive material and destroyed the reactor building. So you got burning like material shoot. Radioactive material shooting up into the air again. That's invisible, okay? It's just shooting out into the air. And people are like, nobody knows. As a matter of fact, a couple of miles away, there was actually this nuclear fallout that the people thought was snow. And they had little kids were running around licking it like snowflakes. All died. Everybody died. Because that was nuclear fallout. Crazy. Nothing like a bukhaki of nuclear fallout. Okay? So the workers really didn't know what was going on. I mean, they heard loud explosions and they were like, oh, no. And it was obviously confusing, chaotic. And they started suffering from radiation sickness like immediately. First of all, the explosions killed two plant workers right away. I mean, right away, just done. But then the radiation sickness, I mean, it Happened quick, like a day later. You're like, I'm gonna die. So these explosions, they released so much radioactive material, and the safety systems had been turned off for the test. So they didn't actually stop the accident, because in order to test this, they had to turn off the safety. So it was just one thing after another going bad. Here's what happens. Chernobyl, right, was two miles away from a town called Pripyat. And Pripyat was a town that was built specifically for the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and their families, because there was really nothing out there. So they had to. You know, you got to get workers out there. They got to have someplace to live. So it was this modern, growing town. It had about 49,000 residents in 1986. And the Chernobyl power plant workers called Pripyat firefighters to help fight the flames. Because, again, they don't really know back then. They just think, let's just get firefighters and get this fire out. Not knowing that you're actually sending firefighters now to their nuclear. Radiation sickness, death. So they got there within minutes, started battling the flames. No protective gear, because they just didn't. Nobody knew radiation was leaking. They weren't thinking like that back then. They said the radiation tasted like metal, and it felt like, you know, like pins and needles on their face. Many people are gonna get severe radiation burns, which they look like chemical burns, but they're much worse. Skin red, blistered, peeled off. It was, like, described as melting because of how painful and shocking it looks. So it's like, literally, your skin is melting off, and all you can taste is metal. That's crazy. It's like when I eat Puerto Rican food, I don't. It just tastes like metal to me. And I just. It's. My digestive system hasn't yet evolved yet into eating the spicy Latino food that I have now signed myself up for life for. So your boy's gonna be shitting blood till he's 90. So, you know, nausea, nausea, vomiting, dizziness right away. And these firefighters, they're all there again. They thought they put out the fire. They go home, and they realize, oh, I have acute radiation sickness. 28 firefighters died within the first few weeks who fought that blaze because they. I mean, again, quick, like I told you, over years, you get this radiation over years, it can kill. You get cancer later on. This amount of radiation, you're gonna be dead in a week. Eyewitnesses that are there at the time say that night at Chernobyl, when the roof blew off and you got invisible nuclear radiation going into the air. They said the sky looked blue. It was like this blue glowing appearance, kind of like the northern lights in Iceland. But this wasn't that. This was much more nefarious. This was intense radiation. And if you could see it, if you were close enough, you could see it, you were gonna get sick from it. One of the firefighters who was the first one there, Vasily Agamentenko, they saw strange black chunks on the ground. They were like, what the hell is that? And they didn't know that. They thought it could be asphalt or debris. Some picked it up with their hands and then eventually it caused burns right away. Because you know what it was? It was a thing called graphite, which was in the core of reactor number four. And that was what was helping to control the nuclear radiation. And after the explosion, pieces of this highly radioactive graphite were blown onto the ground around the reactor. And so they picked that up with their hands and that was just not the right thing to do. I got to be honest with you, I would have picked it up too and been like selfie, but it was emitting lethal doses of radiation. Okay. I mean, that graphite was probably had the most radiation. And they were taken to this hospital in Pripyat and then transferred to a special radiation hospital in Moscow. They got placed in isolation cuz the bodies were so radioactive. So now after, after a couple of days they realize, okay, we gotta, we know what's happening now. This is bad. Nurses and doctors had to wear protective suits and they even had to have clothes and bedding had to be destroyed after contact. Because if you came even near these radioactive people, you could give it to yourself and then bring it home to your family. So this is a whole mess. You really couldn't even visit your family because if you went and saw them, like, you can't go see daddy dying to death of radioactive poisoning, honey. And. Because then you're going to get it and don't. You don't want to. You don't want to get that. How are you going to go to school? Are you feeling stuck in your daily wellness routine? Well, you're not alone. Our friends at Cornbread Hemp hear you. Their organic CBD gummies are made to help you feel better. Whether it's stress and poor sleep or just needing a moment to unwind. CBD might just be what you need to level up your daily routine. Cornbread hemp uses only the best part of the hemp plant, the flower. That's the best part of everything. For the purest and most potent cbd. No fillers, no junk, just full spectrum goodness. This is the spectrum you want to be on. Okay, this is the one. Corn bread, hemp. Only the best part of the plant, just the flower. Purest and most potent CBD. And they are offering 30% off your first order. You just go to cornbread hemp hemp.com chaos. Use the code chaos at checkout. That is cornbread hemp.com chaos with code chaos to get 30% off your first order. Go do it. It's really the only CBD that I use. It wasn't until April 27th, the next day. So you got full 24 hours of everybody getting radiation to the face, where Pripyat finally evacuates its 50,000 residents to save them from radiation exposure. Little late. Explosion happened at 1:23. Evacuation happened in the afternoon of April 27, around 2pm so everyone was just getting radiation to the dome for over a day. They told it would just be away for a few days by the residents were like. They were like, we're just going to leave for a few days, come right back, Everything will be fine. Nothing to see here. But they actually were never allowed to return. They could never go back because the whole thing is covered in radiation. So how are the officials handling this? Good, right? No, not good. First of all, this is something that never happened before. So to their defense, you don't know what to do. There's no real playbook for this. I mean, there is, but then when it happens, you just start to panic. You human beings. They didn't even think that it was possible for the nuclear core to explode. They were told, this cannot happen. Well, it happened. And then winds carried the radioactive debris all the way to Belarus, Russia in the Baltic region. Over the next few days, it actually got to Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, the UK Even came as far as Canada. So the world starts to experience this nuclear radiation fall. And that is not a good look for the ussr. That is not okay. And then, of course, officials delay the response after the explosion. Soviet Union waited days to admit what had happened globally because they were like, we have to get our story straight. And now we. When the radiation got detected in Sweden, they said, now we have to admit something's wrong, because the last thing you want to do is kill the Swedish fish. Don't want to do that. But this was not a good look for the ussr. So they're trying to cover their own ass. They don't want to say what a big problem this is. Kids in East Germany, they were not allowed to play outside. The Germans just clamped it down. But the May Day parades that were going on in cities like Kiev and Minsk, crowds weren't told anything. They went out, celebrated and they just marched through high radiation. So not good. I heard about this company, Quints, and this I'm so happy that they're advertising on the show. I get almost everything from Quints. I mean, this company is amazing. 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So one apartment building in the USSR to help with The Chernobyl cleanup. And these people became known as the liquidators. The liquidators and the Soviet military came to help control the disaster. And anyone involved with the cleanup were subject to getting sick and essentially had a death sentence. So you were thought you got a good job here as a liquidator, but you were really going to your death. They actually airlifted the workers onto the roof to shovel burning debris and spray water to cool the reactor. And at the top of the roof is exactly where the most radiation was. Helicopters. They drop sand and clay and boron onto the exposed reactor to smooth the fire. Again, this is all the worst. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states. Place to be is on top of that thing. But it wasn't enough. So three men who worked at the Chernobyl plant drove into radioactive water in the basement reactor number four to stop a steam explosion that could have spread spread more radioactive material across Europe. And these three men saved over tens of thousands of lives. And they probably died very shortly after that. Then you had miners come in. They had to dig a tunnel beneath the reactor number four to prevent the molten core from reaching the groundwater. That was also another catastrophe that could have exposed millions to death. Because now if you get the radiation in the water, that's not good. Because one thing you need in this world is water. Trees, animals all became radioactive. The debris and dust from the explosion settled onto them. So again, can't eat every vegetable, can't eat the animals. What the hell are you gonna do? You're gonna have to eat each other. So military personnel actually got sent in to clear debris, bury contaminated animals and trees and evacuate over 100,000 people from the exclusion zone to reduce this radiation exposure. It took two full weeks to fully put out the fires. And it was wild. Many of these liquidators, as we suspected, got high doses of radiation, had little protection. And even though they contained the disaster, which very thankful for, they all died. They all died pretty gruesome deaths because it is not fun to die of radiation exposure. You should try it sometime. The radioactive cloud actually released this thing called iodine 131, which is linked to thyroid cancer and cesium 131, which stays active for decades. So that's the problem with any radioactive nuclear thing. Is it's just in you forever or it's around for 40 years, you cannot even been born and you're gonna have the effects of it contaminated the soil, the water, all the crops across Ukraine, Belarus, milk, vegetables, meat, everything was unsafe, especially harmful to children. And 5 million people who lived in areas contaminated by that cloud when the disaster happened, they really didn't even know what the hell was going on. And over 100,000 people were evacuated, as we said, from these zones. But millions remained in these areas with this lower contamination, not knowing, slowly over time, it was killing them. Now, radiation levels, they've decreased since 1986, of course, but some regions still have dangerous levels of contamination today. Right now, thyroid cases through the roof, particularly among children. So that's very sad. So after this, you know, the USSR says, what the hell are we gonna do? So they make this massive concrete and steel structure, it's called the sarcophagus. And it was quickly built to cover the damaged reactor. So they're hoping like maybe this will keep some of it in. It was this job that, you know, they had to do to contain the radioactive dust and debris and limit their radiation leaks. I mean, again, exposed workers. The workers here. The thing if you were work, if you needed work in 1986 in the Chernobyl area, we have a job for you. The only catch is you're going to be dead within a week. Do you want it? Yes. Okay. Here's your mask, guys. This episode sponsored by BlueChew. You know, I love bluechew and I want to thank the people who are sending me their erections to my DMs. Because I know the ones who are bluechew erections and the ones who are not bluechew erections. And you know me, I only like to see the blue Juke ox. The bzzs and the tablets are made right here in the usa. And the one thing I love is a freedom boner. I mean, guys, no, listen, here's the thing about it. It's not just about the performance. 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But in 2016, a larger, stronger structure called the new safe confinement that was placed to help better contain the reactor and enable a safer cleanup. I would have just called it sarcophagus number two. So how many people actually died in Chernobyl? So the Soviet government only admits to about 30 deaths, plant workers and firefighters. So that's what they said. They still did. The real number is 30. But of course, the Ukraine government in 1995, when they broke off from the USSR, they were like, actually 125,000 people died. Okay. Pieces of shit. Radiation exposure. That was the thing that killed. Radiation exposure. Okay. So the UN Chernobyl forum projected up to 9,000 cancer related deaths could follow after this. The cancer that stood out, thyroid cancer. By 2005, there were 6,000 cases and counting tied to the exposure from iodine 131. And this is not like, you know, here in this country where people just try to like make believe they have some disease to get money. This is. They really had this kids. It was awful. No official health studies have been done in the immediate aftermath, but the damage continues to surface even decades later. Because Chernobyl today is kind of like a time capsule. The Chernobyl exclusion zone remains off limits for permanent residents. Ukrainian authorities say it won't be safe to live for another 20, 24,000 years. Okay, 24,000 years. So, you know, longevity experts out there, you know, keep up with your exercise, keep up with your Omega 3s, and maybe you'll live long enough one day to get into Chernobyl safely. You can visit the site. Okay, you can go visit, you can step into a place. It's like it's a frozen in time place where nature is slowly reclaiming the abandoned buildings. So that's the thing, nature, you can't overpower it. Even though there's radiation everywhere. Nature's saying, well, we're coming through and I'm building plants. But tourists can visit the site. Okay, so I told you can visit the site and step into this place. You can, hours or days at the most. Keep radiation exposure low. Guided tours has to be guided. You can't just go in there and stay in an Airbnb. And you got to stay on safe paths and you got to avoid contaminated areas. You can't live in the Zone permanently because then you'll die. And you don't want to die, right? Or maybe you do, I don't know. You guys are crazy. So studies actually show that children born to Chernobyl survivors may carry subtle DNA mutations caused by radiation exposure even if they don't develop cancer. These non cancerous mutations highlight how nuclear disasters, they can leave these long term invisible legacies in human health. Now here's a little Chrissy conspiracy. I, years ago, 15 years ago, kept getting women pregnant. And we said, well, what the hell? A lot of these women are saying they're on birth control. How is this happening? So what happened is a doctor said, why don't you test your sperm? So, tested my sperm. And they called me into an office a couple of days later and there was a man, there were three doctors and one man named Neil who had a clipboard. I'll never forget Neil. And so they asked me, they said, where were you born? And I said, St. John's Hospital, Queens, New York. What up? And they've turned it into apartment buildings now. So they said, are you sure about that? Were you adopted? I said, no, why are you asking me that? I feel like I look like my mom and dad. I really, I wish I looked more like my mom, but unfortunately I do look more like my dad. And they were like, well, we're just wondering because you have 10 times the amount of sperm in a normal load as average men your age. So we've only seen these types of genetic mutations in children who were born near nuclear disaster sites like Chernobyl. And I was like, oh, okay. Because they were like, you know, you were born in 1984, Chernobyl happened in 1986. You could have been a young boy. Was anything, you know. Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that you were born in America? And I was like, I am absolutely 100% sure I was born in America. I confirmed that with my mom. She said we were born in America. But then she did recently tell me that we are Russian spies. And my real name is Sergey, but I spell it S, E, R, G, A, Y. Who are the people that got blamed? So of course, people, there needs to be some responsibility Here. And you know what it is in Russia, if you're responsible for something bad things are going to happen even worse to you. So Anatoly Dyatolov, Anatoly Dyatolov, he was the deputy chief engineer at Chernobyl, and he supervised the test. He was the one that pushed the test forward despite the safety violations. He was like, we must go. You do it now. And he ignored the warnings from the staff. And he got 10 years in prison. Actually, it's not too bad, 10 years in prison, but 10 years in Russian prison, and that is not good. Ask Brittney Griner. I mean, ask Brittney Griner how bad Russian prison is, okay? I mean, she only spent 18 months in Russia prison, and she got back to the United States and cut her tits off. Then we have Victor Blukhanaev, plant, who was the plant director. He got accused of poor oversight, and he was like, I couldn't see anything. My eyes are filled with nuclear radiation. And then he didn't properly prepare for emergencies. He also got 10 years. Nikolai Foman, chief engineer, guilty alongside Dyatlov and Brukilenev, also got 10 years. So everybody got about 10 years. But the truthy wuthi of the situation is this reactor was flawed, okay? Prone to instability at low power. But this was a state secret. So really, these Russian people should have just put themselves in prison because they were the ones who caused the problem. But of course, you know, the rich people, the people, the powers that be, are never going to implicate themselves. So other people get blamed. Not saying these guys were innocent, but they were forced to operate a plant that was going to happen. This was gonna happen one way or another, you know, and the plant workers didn't know how risky it was, but the government did. But, you know, it's the Soviets, ussr, it's the Russians. You cannot question authority. So when the projects get rushed, they hide the problems. Unsafe conditions. It's just what it is. There's a deadly legacy beneath reactor number four, and it's called the Elephant's foot, okay? The elephant's foot. I have elephantitis in my testicles. Elephant's foot. It was a wrinkled gray boulder like my nuts. And in 1986, if you stood next to it for just 30 seconds, you would get radiation sickness, okay? Two minutes, dead meat. Okay? So they knew that. That's how lethal it was, though. 10,000 roentengens per hour. For comparison, a chest x ray gives you about 0.01. Okay? So this is 10,000. So you are just getting Dosed with roten gans, which is radioactive. So workers, they would use remote control cameras and mirrors to study it. But even the machines malfunctioned because of the radiation. So I mean, it was even killing the robots. Today the Elephant's foot is weaker, only about 800 Roentengens per hour, but still too dangerous for a long exposure. So you can't go near it anytime soon. And it wasn't just radioactive. This was historic, folks, okay? One of the most dangerous man made substances on Earth, the Elephant's Foot, still to this day, one of the most dangerous substances on earth. And it just shows you, man, how one person's mistake triggered a global catastrophe and scarred the planet for generations. I really genuinely think, for real, for real, that like when we say like holes in the ozone layer and all that, it's not from your hairspray. I think Chernobyl, you have to understand, like this was. This emitted more nuclear radiation than the bombs in the 40s. So people only ever think about, oh, we only dropped nukes on Japan. Those are the only two nuclear bombs ever used in history. That's not true. This is a nuclear bomb in Chernobyl. Like, I know nobody dropped it, but this emitted nuclear radiation into the air just like the atom bombs did. So I genuinely believe this caused a hole in the ozone layer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. And you know what? Mikhail Gorbachev, the man with the birthmark on his head, he said he thought that Chernobyl meltdown was even more problematic than his launch of perestroika. And he said that was the real collapse of the Soviet Union. Five years later, he blames Chernobyl for a big, big, big collapse. And I mean, this was a big. See, that's the thing with history. Now you realize, like, you have to really search it out because historians will make certain things a big deal and certain things not a big deal. That's just how it goes. So we are like, oh, these are the big problems of the world. They purposely minimized Chernobyl because they didn't want to let people know, like, hey, we've just changed the planet forever. Mikhail Gorbachev believed that this Chernobyl disaster had the biggest impact on the Soviet's future. And it led to the USSR's collapse. He said that exposed government failures, government secrets, and weakened the trust in the system. So people didn't really believe their government anymore because they could see clear as day that they were just trying to cover up this awful thing. So it wasn't just radiation that spread from Chernobyl. It was truth. Because that disaster shattered public trust and it exposed the deep flaws in the government, like we said. So, yeah, so there are some pot silver linings of Chernobyl. The truth came out. And that's what I'm searching for. The truth. Okay, so in closing, what did we learn here? Well, number one, don't live in Ukraine or near a plant, a nuclear plant, or anywhere in the air. Just don't go to Russia or Ukraine. It's not safe right now. Just stay here in the thirteen colonies. Communicate the truth. It can save lives, okay? The truth matters. You can't handle the truth. Yes, I can, you cosmonaut. Never forget that amazing people who gave their lives to contain the molten hot radioactive lava. Shout out, my miners, my soldiers, my divers, my liquidators. Thank you so much for your service. You helped prevent this disaster from going any further than it actually did. And I gotta be honest with you, I don't even understand why anyone is even fighting to keep the Ukraine. I mean, the whole place is radioactive, okay? I mean, the whole place is caked in radioactive shit. So unless you're trying to glow in the dark, Putin, just let it go. And I would advise the people of Ukraine to also just move here. Just come to the United States. We love you here. We love your food. Shout out pierogies. I think those are Polish, right? Sorry. You people all look the same. And yet another example of how the USSR blows up and USA remains number one. I'm so happy to be an American where we have no nuclear disasters here. Okay, that was it. Tell me what you liked, what you didn't like about Chernobyl. I love you. Thanks for listening. And remember, yesterday was history. I just farted.