Gorbachev: the Chernobyl accident, an address

The video features an address by Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, on the Chernobyl accident.

He talks about the rescue efforts, names the number of victims and deaths, describes the probable causes of the accident - the sudden increase in reactor capacity during a scheduled shutdown, the accumulation of steam and hydrogen and the explosion, the evacuation of the population, and more. He says that as soon as they received reliable information, they communicated it to the public and the world. He also accuses the United States and other NATO countries of reacting to the disaster and accusing the USSR.

The video is in Russian.

Note: The accident at the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred on April 26, 1986. The first Soviet media report on the accident appeared only on April 28, and Mikhail Gorbachev's public address was made only on May 14, 1986.