Military checkpoint at the entrance to the city of Chernobyl. Life in Chernobyl has changed significantly during the war, as it has in the rest of Ukraine. Today, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is fully militarized, filled with checkpoints and mined to prevent another attack from Russia.
Chernobyl City, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2024
The forest burns behind the ghost town of Pripyat. On April 27, 2015, one of the largest fires in the Exclusion Zone occurred. More than 113 square kilometers of contaminated forest were affected, spreading tons of radioactive particles into the air.
Pripyat, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015
A family photograph hanging on the wall of an office inside the Jupiter factory in the ghost town of Pripyat. Officially a producer of household appliance components, the factory secretly manufactured semiconductors for the military. After the Chernobyl disaster, the factory became a radiological laboratory for testing various decontamination techniques and operated until 1996.
Pripyat, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015
The recently burned Red Forest, one of the most contaminated places in the Chernobyl area, with the new sarcophagus covering reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the background. Today, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant stands as a monument to the pain and suffering it caused the world.
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2024
A worker inside the damaged control room of reactor No. 4, where it all began. The other three reactors at the plant remained operational after the accident and were shut down in 2000. The dismantling of the reactors is planned after 2065, when radiation levels inside will have decreased enough to allow intervention. Until then, workers must keep the plant safe.
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015
Victor, inside the checkpoint of the city of Pripyat, has worked as a guard for seven years. His main task is to allow entry only to authorized personnel. During the day, the guards patrol the city by bicycle to ensure there are no illegal visitors such as stalkers or thieves searching for scrap materials. They often cross the heavily contaminated city without any protective gear.
Pripyat, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015
Workers heading to the bus station in the city of Chernobyl to return home to their families after their work shift. Workers in the zone alternate 15 days of work with 15 days of rest or “decontamination” at their homes outside the area.
Chernobyl, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015
Yuriy sandblasting radioactive metals. Within the zone lie tons of abandoned and contaminated metal, and since 2007, the Ukrainian government has legalized their recycling through sandblasting. This process takes place in a large hangar inside the zone where twelve men clean and recycle radioactive metals.
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015
Maria Semenyuk, 78, in her home in the semi-abandoned and contaminated village of Paryshev, inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Maria passed away on May 17, 2016.
Paryshev, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015
A fox wanders through the streets of the ghost town of Pripyat. The absence of humans in the Exclusion Zone has allowed nature to grow unchecked and rampant, though altered. The area has also become a kind of wildlife reserve, home to animals such as wolves, foxes, wild boars, deer, elk, lynxes, and even bears living undisturbed.
Pripyat, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015
Ania, 23, with her six-month-old daughter Roma, affected by hydrocephalus. The effects of genetic mutations are now appearing in new generations, as those who were under six years old at the time of the disaster are beginning to have children.
Pediatric Neurosurgery Clinic, Kyiv, 2015
In the ghost town of Pripyat, there is a workshop where workers repair and refurbish damaged and weathered warning signs. After repair, they are reinstalled to mark the most contaminated and dangerous locations in the zone. A task that, given the rate of radioactive decay of various substances, will have to be carried out for thousands of years.
Pripyat, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, 2015