Chernobyl exclusion zone
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation, also called the 30-Kilometre Zone or simply The Zone, was established shortly after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union.
Initially, Soviet authorities declared an exclusion zone spanning a radius around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, designating the area for evacuations and placing it under military control. Its borders have since been altered to cover a larger area of Ukraine: it includes the northernmost part of Vyshhorod Raion in Kyiv Oblast, and also adjoins the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve in neighbouring Belarus. The Chernobyl exclusion zone is managed by an agency of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, while the power plant and its sarcophagus and the New Safe Confinement are administered separately.
The current area of approximately in Ukraine is where radioactive contamination is the highest, and public access and habitation are accordingly restricted. Other areas of compulsory resettlement and voluntary relocation not part of the restricted exclusion zone exist in the surrounding areas and throughout Ukraine. In February 2019, it was revealed that talks were underway to re-adjust the exclusion zone's boundaries to reflect the declining radioactivity of its outer areas.
Public access to the exclusion zone is restricted in order to prevent access to hazardous areas, reduce the spread of radiological contamination, and conduct radiological and ecological monitoring activities. Today, the Chernobyl exclusion zone is one of the most radioactively contaminated areas on Earth and draws significant scientific interest for the high levels of radiation exposure in the environment, as well as increasing interest from disaster tourists. It has become a thriving sanctuary, with natural flora and fauna and some of the highest biodiversity and thickest forests in all of Ukraine, due primarily to the lack of human activity in the exclusion zone since 1986.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Chernobyl exclusion zone has been the site of fighting with neighbouring Russia, which captured Chernobyl on 24 February 2022. By April 2022, however, as the Kyiv offensive failed, the Russian military withdrew from the region. Ukrainian authorities have continued to keep the exclusion zone closed to tourists, pending the eventual cessation of hostilities in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
History
Pre-1986: Before the Chernobyl nuclear disaster
Historically and geographically, the zone is the heartland of the Polesia region. This predominantly rural woodland and marshland area was once home to 120,000 people living in the cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat as well as 187 smaller communities, but is now mostly uninhabited. All settlements remain designated on geographic maps but marked as нежил. – "uninhabited". The woodland in the area around Pripyat was a focal point of partisan resistance during the Second World War, which allowed evacuated residents to evade guards and return into the woods. In the woodland near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant stood the "Partisan's Tree" or "Cross Tree", which was used to hang captured partisans. The tree fell down due to age in 1996 and a memorial now stands at its location.1986: Soviet exclusion zones
10-kilometre and 30-kilometre radius
The Exclusion Zone was established on soon after the Chernobyl disaster, when a Soviet government commission headed by Nikolai Ryzhkov decided on a "rather arbitrary" area of a radius from Reactor 4 as the designated evacuation area. The 30 km Zone was initially divided into three subzones: the area immediately adjacent to Reactor 4, an area of approximately radius from the reactor, and the remaining 30 km zone. Protective clothing and available facilities varied between these subzones.Later in 1986, after updated maps of the contaminated areas were produced, the zone was split into three areas to designate further evacuation areas based on the revised dose limit of 100 mSv.
- the "Black Zone", to which evacuees were never to return
- the "Red Zone", where evacuees might return once radiation levels normalized
- the "Blue Zone", where children and pregnant women were evacuated starting in the summer of 1986
In November 1986, control over activities in the zone was given to the new production association Kombinat. Based in the evacuated city of Chernobyl, the association's responsibility was to operate the power plant, decontaminate the 30 km zone, supply materials and goods to the zone, and construct housing outside the new town of Slavutych for the power plant personnel and their families.
In March 1989, a "Safe Living Concept" was created for people living in contaminated zones beyond the Exclusion Zone in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. In October 1989, the Soviet government requested assistance from the International Atomic Energy Agency to assess the "Soviet Safe Living Concept" for inhabitants of contaminated areas. "Throughout the Soviet period, an image of containment was partially achieved through selective resettlements and territorial delineations of contaminated zones."
Post-1991: Independent Ukraine
In February 1991, the law On The Legal Status of the Territory Exposed to the Radioactive Contamination resulting from the ChNPP Accident was passed, updating the borders of the Exclusion Zone and defining obligatory and voluntary resettlement areas, and areas for enhanced monitoring. The borders were based on soil deposits of strontium-90, caesium-137, and plutonium as well as the calculated dose rate as identified by the National Commission for Radiation Protection of Ukraine. Responsibility for monitoring and coordination of activities in the Exclusion Zone was given to the Ministry of Chernobyl Affairs.In-depth studies were conducted from 1992 to 1993, completing an update of the 1991 law followed by further evacuations from the Polesia area. A number of evacuation zones were determined: the "Exclusion Zone", the "Zone of Absolute Resettlement", and the "Zone of Guaranteed Voluntary Resettlement", as well as many areas throughout Ukraine designated as areas for radiation monitoring. The evacuation of contaminated areas outside of the Exclusion Zone continued in both the compulsory and voluntary resettlement areas, with 53,000 people evacuated from areas in Ukraine from 1990 to 1995.
After Ukrainian Independence, funding for the policing and protection of the zone was initially limited, resulting in even further settling by samosely and other illegal intrusion.
In 1997, the areas of Poliske and Narodychi, which had been evacuated, were added to the existing area of the Exclusion Zone, and the zone now encompasses the exclusion zone and parts of the zone of Absolute Resettlement of an area of approximately. This Zone was placed under management of the 'Administration of the exclusion zone and the zone of absolute resettlement' within the Ministry of Emergencies.
On 15 December 2000, all nuclear power production at the power plant ceased after an official ceremony with then-President Leonid Kuchma when the last remaining operational reactor, number 3, was shut down.
In May 2025, it was reported that around 100 hectares of land in the Chernobyl exclusion zone had contamination drop to a level safe enough to allow farming to commence in those areas.
Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022–present)
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone was the site of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces during the Battle of Chernobyl on 24 February 2022, as part of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian forces reportedly captured the plant the same day.Facilities at Chernobyl still require ongoing management, in part to ensure the continued cooling of spent nuclear fuel. An estimated 100 plant workers and 200 Ukrainian guards who were at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant when the Russians arrived had been unable to leave. Normally they would change shifts daily and would not live at the site. They had limited supplies of medication, food, and electricity.
According to Ukrainian reports, the radiation levels in the exclusion zone increased after the invasion. The higher levels are believed to be a result of disturbance of radioactive dust by the military activity or possibly incorrect readings caused by cyberattacks.
On 10 March 2022, the International Atomic Energy Agency stated that it had lost all contact with Chernobyl.
On 22 March, the Ukrainian state agency responsible for the Chernobyl exclusion zone reported that Russian forces had destroyed a new laboratory at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The laboratory, which opened in 2015, worked to improve the management of radioactive waste, among other things. "The laboratory contained highly active samples and samples of radionuclides that are now in the hands of the enemy, which we hope will harm itself and not the civilized world", the agency said in its statement.
On 27 March, Lyudmila Denisova, then–Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, said that 31 known individual fires covering 10,000 hectares were burning in the zone. These fires caused "...an increased level of radioactive air pollution", according to Denisova. Firefighters were unable to reach the fires due to the Russian forces in the area. These wildfires are seasonal; one fire that was 11,500 hectares in size took place in 2020, and a series of several smaller fires occurred throughout the 2010s.
On 31 March, it was reported that most of the Russian troops occupying Chernobyl withdrew. An Exclusion Zone employee made a post on Facebook suggesting that Russian troops were suffering from acute radiation sickness, based on a photo of military buses unloading near a radiation hospital in Belarus. Chernobyl operator Energoatom claimed that Russian troops had dug trenches in the most contaminated part of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, receiving "significant doses" of radiation. BBC News reported unconfirmed reports that some were being treated in Belarus.
On 3 April 2022, Ukrainian forces retook the Chernobyl power plant.