Ultimately, as documentaries go, this one is not great. The running theme presented is that a Russian Government Official forced Chernobyl to explode, in order to hide the fact that the Duga (Russian Over-The-Horizon Radar) was not working. I think even a casual observer, not understanding the Soviet history would find this claim hard to believe.
There are moments in the picture where Fedor (Our guide) is conducting interviews with officials who are essentially denying his claims as preposterous. It then switches to Fedor watching the same interview back on a TV, and he is claiming that the person he is interviewing is squirming in their chair. We don't really see that, he's just telling us what he sees in the interview that he gave. While he watches it. We see nothing of the sort. Except an angry Russian who probably didn't like this kid's weird conspiracy questions.
While there are some good interviews where they are talking to people who worked at the Nuclear Power Plant, and they were critical of the institution for ordering the experiments; Fedor, instead of going with this information and expounding on it, to make a better documentary on what happened, he goes on this weird tangent about how it was a planned explosion to hide that the Duga didn't work.
Here's the thing... And they don't mention it in the documentary. There were at least two Duga's. One was indeed in the Ukraine at Chernobyl (The receiver anyway), but the other was in the East. The Soviets used this system for almost twenty years. They didn't just get up one day in the middle of 1986 and decide that this would be the time to judge whether the system was worth the money or not. And the idea that the person in charge would try to melt-down the power-plant to hide it is preposterous. Because the commission that is there to check on it, could just go check on the Duga in the East to see how it was working and draw the same conclusions.
The administrator would have had to of blown up a nuclear power plant in the East and in the West to hide both Duga's. There may have even been a third - http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/Russian_Bases_Wood pecker_Duga_Radar_Ukraine.html
The Duga must have been a success, because the Russians are now using "Container" Radar, which is the next generation Over-The- Horizon radar born out of the Duga's history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_radar
So this "Documentary" is less about substance, and more about conspiracy. There are plenty of things the Soviets did wrong, that one doesn't need to invent fiction about it. The truth is always more interesting.
There are moments in the picture where Fedor (Our guide) is conducting interviews with officials who are essentially denying his claims as preposterous. It then switches to Fedor watching the same interview back on a TV, and he is claiming that the person he is interviewing is squirming in their chair. We don't really see that, he's just telling us what he sees in the interview that he gave. While he watches it. We see nothing of the sort. Except an angry Russian who probably didn't like this kid's weird conspiracy questions.
While there are some good interviews where they are talking to people who worked at the Nuclear Power Plant, and they were critical of the institution for ordering the experiments; Fedor, instead of going with this information and expounding on it, to make a better documentary on what happened, he goes on this weird tangent about how it was a planned explosion to hide that the Duga didn't work.
Here's the thing... And they don't mention it in the documentary. There were at least two Duga's. One was indeed in the Ukraine at Chernobyl (The receiver anyway), but the other was in the East. The Soviets used this system for almost twenty years. They didn't just get up one day in the middle of 1986 and decide that this would be the time to judge whether the system was worth the money or not. And the idea that the person in charge would try to melt-down the power-plant to hide it is preposterous. Because the commission that is there to check on it, could just go check on the Duga in the East to see how it was working and draw the same conclusions.
The administrator would have had to of blown up a nuclear power plant in the East and in the West to hide both Duga's. There may have even been a third - http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/Russian_Bases_Wood pecker_Duga_Radar_Ukraine.html
The Duga must have been a success, because the Russians are now using "Container" Radar, which is the next generation Over-The- Horizon radar born out of the Duga's history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_radar
So this "Documentary" is less about substance, and more about conspiracy. There are plenty of things the Soviets did wrong, that one doesn't need to invent fiction about it. The truth is always more interesting.