A widow who survived the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe has become one of the latest victims of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, killed in a Russian missile strike on a Kyiv apartment block known to house survivors of the 1986 disaster.
A Tragic Death Decades in the Making
Natalia Khodemchuk, 62, was rushed to hospital with severe burns affecting 45% of her body after the brutal attack on Friday but could not be saved. Her death marks a cruel historical parallel, as her husband, Soviet engineer Valery Khodemchuk, was killed aged 35 in the Chernobyl explosion. He was vaporised in the blast, and his remains were never found.
This attack, one of the war's most intense on Kyiv, claimed seven lives and left 35 people wounded. Mrs Khodemchuk, a pensioner, suffered facial and upper body burns and had pre-existing heart problems, a combination she could not survive.
A Hero of Chernobyl Also Caught in the Attack
The Russian strike also damaged the apartment of Oleksiy Ananenko, 66, a recognised hero of the Chernobyl disaster. In 1986, Ananenko was one of three 'suicide divers' who volunteered to wade through radioactive water to drain a reservoir, preventing a second, cataclysmic nuclear explosion that could have rendered much of Europe uninhabitable.
He was later named a Hero of Ukraine in 2019. His wife, Valentyna, 55, described the terror of the night, recounting how they woke to the sound of a drone before an explosion rocked their building. "When I looked out the window, pieces of debris were lying on the ground, burning," she said. They escaped their smoke-filled flat to a neighbour's apartment to wait out the inferno.
The Lingering Shadow of Chernobyl
The explosion on 26 April 1986 destroyed Reactor Number 4 at the Chernobyl plant. The perilous mission undertaken by Ananenko, along with Valeri Bespalov and Boris Baranov, was critical. Scientists feared that if 185 tonnes of molten nuclear material met the water below, it would trigger a radioactive steam explosion of 3-5 megatonnes.
Reflecting on his actions, Ananenko later stated, "I did my job and it's nothing to brag about. I wasn't scared because I focused on my duties." The apartment block targeted in this recent attack was specifically known to Russians as the place where Chernobyl survivors were re-housed after the disaster, adding a sinister layer of intent to the strike.
