Vassili Nesterenko

Vassili Nesterenko (born, 1934 in Krasny Kut Village, Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine) is a physicist from Belarus, former director of the Institut of Nuclear Energy at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. He has a diploma from the Bauman Moscow State Technical University. He works on the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. He died on August 25th, 2008.

Since 1990, he has been the director of the Belarusian Independent Institute of "Belrad", created in 1989 with the help of Andrei Sakharov, Ales Adamovich and Anatoly Karpov.p. 155.]

Because of his activities, he lost his job and got problems from the State Security Agency of Belarus, which threatened him with internment in a psychiatric asylum. Recently the Belarusian government tried to soften him proposing him to get back a job in a State Institute, "at the condition that he would not work on Chernobyl any more." He escaped two attentats."Le Crime de Tchernobyl, le Goulag nucléaire", de Wladimir Tchertkoff, Actes Sud, avril 2006.]

He intervened immediately on the burning atomic plant. As an expert, and for the occasion, as a fireman, he threw liquid nitrogen containers from a helicopter on the reactor core, in the middle of radioactive smoke. He survived, despite the heavy radioactive contamination of the area. Of the four passengers of his helicopter, three died from radioactive irradiation and contamination."Le Crime de Tchernobyl, le Goulag nucléaire".]

References

* http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/cv_nesterenko.html
* "Le Crime de Tchernobyl, le Goulag nucléaire", de Wladimir Tchertkoff, Actes Sud, avril 2006.
* http://independentwho.info/spip.php?article33