Chernobyl (TV Mini Series)

Vichnaya Pamyat (2019)

Hilton McRae: Judge Milan Kadnikov

Photos 

Quotes 

• Judge Milan Kadnikov : Professor Legasov, if you mean to suggest the Soviet State is somehow responsible for what happened, then I must warn you, you are treading on dangerous ground.

  Valery Legasov : I've already trod on dangerous ground. We're on dangerous ground right now, because of our secrets and our lies. They are practically what define us. When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies.

• Valery Legasov : [testifying]  Dyatlov broke every rule we have. He pushed a reactor to the brink of destruction. He did these things believing there was a failsafe: AZ-5, a simple button to shut it all down. But in the circumstances he created, there wasn't. The shutdown system had a fatal flaw. At 1:23:40, Akimov engages AZ-5. The fully-withdrawn control rods begin moving back into the reactor. These rods are made of boron - which reduces reactivity - but not their tips. The tips are made of graphite, which accelerates reactivity.

  Judge Milan Kadnikov : Why?

  Valery Legasov : Why? For the same reason our reactors do not have containment buildings around them, like those in the West. For the same reason we don't use properly enriched fuel in our cores. For the same reason we are the only nation that builds water-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors with a positive void coefficient.

  [pause] 

  Valery Legasov : It's cheaper.