Looks like Russians are starting to ask rather pointed questions about the recent nuclear incident that’s apparently now forcing the evacuation of a village not far from the accident site.

Many Russians spoke angrily on social media of misleading reports reminiscent of the lethal delays in acknowledging the Chernobyl accident three decades ago.

Russia’s state weather service said radiation levels spiked in the Russian city of Severodvinsk by up to 16 times following the explosion.

On Tuesday, Russian authorities urged residents of Nyonoksa, which is closer to the site of the explosion and has a population of around 500, to leave their village while work is carried out in the area.

“We have received a notification … about the planned activities of the military authorities. In this regard, residents of Nyonoksa were asked to leave the territory of the village from August 14,” local media quoted authorities in Severodvinsk as saying.

It’s similar - though on a smaller scale (hopefully!) - to what happened in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl reactor explosion.

The Russian authorities are frantically playing the old game of “cover your ass” and are not properly informing the affected population about exactly WTF is going on.

abc.net.au

I’m starting to wonder just how bad this accident really was. And to what lengths the Russian authorities will go to conceal the truth. They seem to have learned the wrong lesson from Chernobyl; instead of being open and transparent about what happened, they’re going to end up doubling down on secrecy, obfuscation and disinformation.