“Chernobyl 1986”. Russian production available on Netflix

It is worth noting that although the production is signed as Netflix Original, it was not commissioned by the streaming giant. The platform has purchased exclusive rights to distribute Russian production on the Internet, so it uses a typical labeling. The actual producer of the film is Central Partnership, Gazprom’s largest Russian production and distribution company.

Just like the hit series HBO and Sky, here we witness the disaster at the Chernobyl power plant. This time, however, the creators do not account for the tragedy. “Does it matter” – replies one of the heroes when asked which country is responsible for the tragedy.

However, Daniel Kozłowski’s film focuses on love threads that are not fully resolved in the end. It is not production that explains the causes of the disaster, nor does it try to answer the question of why the reactor exploded at all. This is a melodrama about a firefighter who rescues his colleagues who have been injured.

If someone has never heard of the history of Chernobyl, they will not learn much from Russian production. The most important fact that has been completely ignored is the information that the responsibility for the reactor explosion rests with the USSR authorities, which not only tried to cover up the scale of the disaster, but also risked the lives of hundreds of workers. The victims were often unaware of the seriousness of the disaster.

Although officially the USSR authorities reported that 31 people died in the crash, subsequent UN reports proved that this number was significantly underestimated. In fact, the number of victims who died over the next months and years as a result of irradiation could be as high as 200,000.