Debunking the Myths of the HBO Chernobyl series (2023)

The image presented in the TV show is not that Dyatlov is evil, but that he is dismissive of his staff's concerns, he bullies them into submission, and he has a callous indifference to safety. This is all true. He's also the main author of the test procedure! Dyatlov had been at Chernobyl since planning began in 1973, and by comparison Toptunov was 25 years old and had only been in his post for 3 months. If anyone is to blame, it's going to be Dyatlov, and chief engineer Fomin who permitted Dyatlov to run the test. But as the TV show makes clear, this pales into insignificance when compared with a regime that intentionally buries secrets, like them already knowing the unsafe design of the RBMK control rods.

The only way I'd say the TV show did him a disservice is in showing him in complete denial there was a problem, and demanding water be pumped into the (nonexistant) core. In reality, he realised it was futile, but after reporting to Fomin and Bryukhanov and collapsing from radiation sickness, it was Fomin who took his place, did not understand the situation, and ordered the futile water pumping.

From INSAG-7:

> When the reactor power could not be restored to the intended level of 700 MW(th), the operating staff did not stop and think, but on the spot they modified the test conditions to match their view at that moment of the prevailing conditions.

> operating rules were violated, and control and safety rods were placed in a configuration that would have compromised the emergency protection of the reactor even had the rod design not been faulty on the ground of the positive scram effect mentioned earlier. Most reprehensibly, unapproved changes in the test procedure were deliberately made on the spot, although the plant was known to be in a condition very different from that intended for the test

> INSAG, with the present report, does not retract INSAG-1, nor does it alter the conclusions of that report except as clearly indicated here. While the balance of INSAG's judgement of the factors contributing to the accident has shifted, the many other conclusions of INSAG-1 are unaffected.

If it's "business as usual" for the operators to invent changes to nuclear safety tests as they carry them out... I don't know what to say to you!

I suspect that you are sourcing "Midnight in Chernobyl", which is based on Medvedev's book, which is full of inventions.

> a regime that intentionally buries secrets, like them already knowing the unsafe design of the RBMK control rods.

This is an invention in the miniseries. See section 4.1 in the INSAG-7 about the Ignalina phenomenon.

> When the reactor power could not be restored to the intended level of 700 MW(th), the operating staff did not stop and think, but on the spot they modified the test conditions to match their view at that moment of the prevailing conditions.

This is a weak spot in the INSAG-7. The 700 MW was the upper limit, not the lower and this number was put in the test conditions by Dyatlov, who designed the test.

> operating rules were violated, and control and safety rods were placed in a configuration

The only operational rule violated was the ORM margin but there was no indication about this metric in the control room and the operators weren't aware of this violation. They were still prosecuted for this. Criminal investigation against Akimov and Toptunov was closed only in November 1986, six months after their deaths.

> INSAG, with the present report, does not retract INSAG-1, nor does it alter the conclusions of that report except as clearly indicated here.

I love this. "No, no, it wasn't bullshit that Legasov gave us in 1986."

> the operators to invent changes to nuclear safety tests

It is not that kind of nuclear safety test that was sent to them from above. The organization that designed the reactor proposed a new mode of operation but didn't bother to design anything. The changes to the design and testing were prepared locally at Chernobyl NPP, so it was Dyatlov who prepared the test program. Fomin authorized the test. The INSAG-7 report says that regulations NSR-04-74 and GSP-82, which were in force at the time of the accident, did not require the plant managers to obtain approval from someone else. In 1987, Fomin was sentenced to 10 years in a penal colony anyway.

The Catholic Church don't like it, not because it ties some fictional conspiracy to them in the context of the plot, but because that first page claims the conspiracy is real. There is a real Opus Dei organisation, but that organisation does not employ albino assassins with peanut allergies, and it's not at war with Pierre Plantard's completely made up organisation.