Mariana Budjeryn | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
May 7, 2026
Mariana Budjeryn, Center for Nuclear Security Policy Senior Researcher, joins a panel of experts to explore Chernobyl’s enduring legacy. Hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Register now for this in-person and online discussion.
"Shortly after midnight on April 26, 1986, a routine safety test at Reactor Four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant went catastrophically wrong, triggering the worst nuclear disaster in history. The meltdown and its aftermath laid bare both the extraordinary courage of first responders and the systemic failures of a Soviet system riddled with incompetence and sycophancy. In the years that followed, Chernobyl—or Chornobyl, in Ukrainian—helped galvanize the nascent Ukrainian independence movement, cast a long shadow over Ukraine’s post-Soviet nuclear disarmament negotiations with the United States, and reemerged as a chilling touchstone in 2022, when invading Russian forces recklessly occupied the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
To explore Chernobyl’s enduring legacy, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace invites you for a panel discussion with Adam Higginbotham, journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller Midnight in Chernobyl; Mariana Budjeryn, senior researcher at MIT's Center for Nuclear Security Policy and author of Inheriting the Bomb; and Corey Hinderstein, vice president for studies at Carnegie and former principal deputy administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Olga Stefanishyna, will deliver opening remarks."
Event information:
When: May 7, 2026
Time: 9:00-10:15am ET
Location: 1779 Mass Ave, Washington, DC