By EFREM LUKATSKY
Updated 1:06 AM EDT, April 22, 2026

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Efrem Lukatsky, a Kyiv-based photographer for The Associated Press, was living in the city on April 26, 1986, when the explosion and fire struck the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, about a two-hour drive away. He has visited the plant and the “exclusion zone” around it dozens of times. He recalls the disaster that has haunted him and Ukraine for 40 years.

…

Secret Russian operation to save Moscow from Chernobyl disaster in 1986 laid bare
RUSSIA launched a top secret mission to save Moscow from nuclear disaster, secret KGB files reveal, according to a new documentary.

By Charlie Pittock
09:22, Mon, Apr 4, 2022 Updated: 12:34, Mon, Apr 4, 2022

Ukrainian soldiers posed proudly with the country’s flag at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant this weekend upon the recapturing of the site. Russian forces had occupied Pripyat — which was abandoned after the 1986 disaster — since the early days of the invasion. They have now retreated with some troops reportedly suffering from radiation sickness. The Russians set up camp in the exclusion zone, digging trenches in the radioactive mud and driving military trucks along the dirt tracks, kicking up radioactive dust.

…

British scientist Dr Alan Flowers, an expert in the effects of radiation in the environment, travelled to the former Soviet Union in 1992 to investigate why an area far from Chernobyl had been especially affected by nuclear fallout.

He explained: “The Soviet Union made it rain.”

…

Shockingly, KGB files revealed Kremlin authorities ordered the May Day parade in Kyiv to take place as a demonstration to the world that all was well despite the accident at Chernobyl.

…

How 50 years of climate change has changed the face of the 'Blue Marble' from space

By Katherine Latham
22nd April 2025
The "Blue Marble" was the first photograph of the whole Earth and the only one ever taken by a human. Fifty years on, new images of the planet reveal visible changes to the Earth's surface.

…

At 07.39 GMT on 7 December 2022 – 50 years later to the minute since the original was taken – a new "Blue Marble" was captured by a satellite orbiting a million miles away. This time, a set of 12 images taken 15 minutes apart, reveal noticeable changes to our planet's surface, the result of 50 years of global warming.

In the 50 years that separates these two snapshots in time, one of the most striking differences is the visible reduction in the size of the Antarctic ice sheet. "You can see the shrinking cryosphere – the shrinking ice sheet and the loss of the snow," says Pepin says. This, he says, is a major indicator of climate change.

The Sahara Desert has also grown while the rainforest "is retreating further south", he adds. Research has shown that tree cover in the vast Sahel region that borders the Sahara Desert has been in significant decline. "The dominant thing that you can see on the [new] image is deforestation and the loss of vegetation", as the Earth's land cover switches from greenery to desert.

…