Chernobyl cooks fight for pensions after radiation scars and wasted food

The meals meant to sustain crews were tainted, lost, or smuggled out

Forty years after Chernobyl, women recruited from the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant to cook for cleanup crews still carry the fallout. They reported radiation exposure, health problems, and troubling handling of worker food—often wasted, sometimes contaminated, and occasionally smuggled out. Decades later, these cooks are still battling for promised pensions, highlighting the disaster’s long afterlife.