MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th April, 2021) The Communists of Russia political party has asked the Investigative Committee to open a criminal case against former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for trying to cover up the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the head of the party's Central Committee Maxim Suraykin told Sputnik.
"The Communists of Russia party has demanded for criminal case to be launched against Gorbachev for withholding information about the explosion at the Chernobyl NPP. Our party believes that Gorbachev was criminally inactive and disrupted the mitigation of the incident. We sent a letter to the Russian Investigative Committee demanding that he be brought to responsibility," Suraykin said.
After having received news about the explosion on April 26, 1986, Gorbachev did not take timely measures so that people could save their lives, stay indoors and not participate in mass events, according to the politician.
"May Day celebrations were not canceled not only in Moscow, Leningrad [now St. Petersburg], Sverdlovsk [Yekaterinburg], Minsk, but also in Kiev. Gorbachev addressed the nation as late as May 14. Obviously, it had to be announced right away, on April 26, with nationwide quarantine declared, after all, a radioactive cloud was recorded even as far as Sweden," Suraykin noted.
The explosion at the Chernobyl NPP in Soviet Ukraine took place in the early hours of April 26, 1986. Nearly 3,000 square miles of territory in northern Ukraine and parts of Belarus have been depopulated, with 1,000 square miles considered an exclusion zone due to elevated levels of radiation. The Chernobyl disaster is widely considered the worst nuclear accident it history. An international outcry over a two-day delay before authorities publicly announced the accident is credited in part with inspiring an era of glasnost (openness) initiated by Gorbachev.
