40 Years On — Chornobyl's Legacy and European Environmental Security
Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy examines how Chornobyl continues to shape environmental policy, energy debates, and European security.
Why we picked this
Forty years after the disaster, Chornobyl's lessons about institutional failure, environmental risk, and geopolitical power remain urgently relevant.
April 2026 marks 40 years since the Chornobyl disaster, and Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy — author of the definitive account of the catastrophe — leads this panel examining its enduring legacy.
Chornobyl wasn’t just a nuclear accident. It accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union, reshaped European energy policy, created one of the world’s largest unintentional nature reserves, and remains a live geopolitical issue as Russia’s war in Ukraine has put nuclear facilities at risk again. Plokhy draws the lines between 1986 and 2026, arguing that the lessons of institutional failure and environmental hubris have never been more relevant.
Free at RSA House.