The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has recently released a new trove of declassified documents related to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in human history.
The documents, which comprise the second part of the book titled "KGB's Chernobyl Dossier. From Construction to Accident", are dated from the early 1970s until November 1986 when the so called Shelter Structure – a massive concrete sarcophagus covering the damaged reactor building – was finished.
According to a statement posted on the SBU's official website, some of the 229 documents featured in the book allegedly mention that accidents took place at the nuclear plant even before April 1986, when the disaster struck, but were covered up.
The book's presentation was held at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone which surrounds the nuclear disaster area.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster occurred on 26 April, 1986, during a safety test simulating a power outage.
The resulting explosion at the reactor led to a large amount of nuclear fuel being released into the atmosphere, contaminating large areas of contemporary Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
The restricted 30 km exclusion zone that was established around the plant due to its extremely high levels of radioactive contamination from nuclear fallout still remains uninhabited and closed to the public.