"Equipment provided by Raytheon as part of a multi-million dollar contract broke the winter after it was installed. One U.S. official said most of the detectors had been designed by Raytheon for the desert environment of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Kazakhs, on their own initiative, sourced equipment designed to withstand Siberian winters from a Russian military supplier; it cost half the amount of the U.S. contract, and easily survived the winter."
https://www.curiousarchive.com/death-in-apartment-85-the-kra...
Even more concerning given that these products will shed that radioactive material into the environment and be ingested by humans. The "quantum wands" as shown in the YouTube video are filled with a sizeable quantity of thorium dioxide powder and is possible to forcibly open.
They are illegal but continue to be sold.
[0] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20190033494/downloads/20... ("The NaK Population: a 2019 Status" (.pdf))
https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/chernobyl-protective...
The highly engineered protective cover was designed to carefully maintain air pressure to confine the site. The hole caused by Russia threatens all of that, as the Russia's drone lit a fire in the waterproof insulation. The destruction of this basic weatherproofing threatens the entire structure, which was meant to last for 100 years without anybody being required to get close to it. Repairs are, well, difficult. A more detailed examination of the structure and its risks is here in a 12:39 video:
Ah the article is also not the paper. It’s a long summary.
Now imagine the appeal of selling any of this radioactive stuff to a shady buyer. Now it's even more appealing.
Do you think they'd be worried about radiation?
very sus.
In reality there's many forms of industrial pollution that are arguably scarier than nuclear waste, but none are quite so eerie in how their harm is caused. Even though it represented the very worst practices for these materials, the idea of a place like Lake Karachay where even half an hour on its shore would have killed you without you even knowing you were doomed is really unsettling. I don't think nuclear technology should be avoided, but there's definitely a formidable image problem here I think.