‘We Are Writing From The Basement’: How Two Ukrainian Radiobiologists Persist Amidst Conflict
- Rachel Burgess
- 12 minutes ago
- 9 min read
Less than an hour north of Kyiv lies the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, an 890 square mile expanse where scientists Kateryna Shavanova and Olena Pareniuk once worked as full-time radiobiologists.
Friends and colleagues for over two decades, Shavanova and Pareniuk had been focusing on the effects of radiation on the microorganisms that live within the Zone, which, together with Belarus’s Polesye State Radioecological Reserve, once formed the biggest natural reserve in Europe. Almost four decades after the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, researchers have found hundreds of species of flora and fauna in the zone, including several rare species. The United Nations Environment Programme descibes the Zone as “an iconic — if accidental — experiment in rewilding.”
However, since Chornobyl’s 2022 capture by Russia and their subsequent retreat, where zoologists and radiobiologists once routinely conducted their studies and the migratory patterns of animals uninterrupted is now a militarized zone strewn with landmines.
“Our work changed crucially,” Shavanova says, when asked how the war has affected her research. “Before the war, I used to be a radiobiologist. I say, ‘used to be’ because now we have huge problems for our field work.” The war reduced their research and that of other scientists working in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone to two-week shifts.
Although the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone is protected by International Humanitarian Law and Protocols I and II of the Geneva Convention — which forbids attacks against nuclear power plants and other facilities that could harm civilians — Shavanova says that the Russian government all but ignored and violated this international law.
One reality that has come out of this violation, Shavanova says, given the presence of operable and decommissioned nuclear facilities and reactors all over the world, is that the global community is largely unprepared to manage another nuclear disaster:
“Now, people all over the world realize that we don’t actually have any algorithms yet,” she says. “We don’t have any proper procedures for what we should do if something like [another nuclear disaster on the scale of Chornobyl or Fukushima] happens again.”
Shavanova and Pareniuk had met years ago when Pareniuk took a genetics course from Shavanova, who was then an assistant lecturer in genetics at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine.
Shavanova’s research and teaching focused on understanding how environmental factors affect gene expression and allow plants to adapt to different conditions without altering their DNA sequencing. Radiation exposure can trigger epigenetic changes that can affect how plants survive and adapt in altered environments, making her research especially important for understanding the effects of radiation contamination.
Pareniuk later obtained a doctorate in biology herself, examining the effects that radionuclides, unstable isotopes that emit radiation, and microorganisms in the soil, have on each other. She also investigates how the composition of microbial communities changes in response to high doses of ionizing radiation. During a 2014–2016 postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Environmental Radioactivity at Fukushima University, Pareniuk conducted a study of bacterial diversity within the destroyed Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant unit. (It was the “first of its kind in the world,” Pareniuk tells me.)
After leaving academia in 2020, Shavanova became the head of research and development in the field of crop production with Kernel Agricultural Holding, the largest producer and exporter of grains in Ukraine, and the leader of the world sunflower oil market. Pareniuk currently serves a senior research associate at the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants, a state-owned government institution.
For the past two and a half years, Shavanova says that both she and Pareniuk have been working less as scientists in the laboratory and “more like public experts.”
Because the war has put their laboratory research on an intermittent schedule, Pareniuk now also works as the coordinator of demining prioritization at the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine. She oversees a team of Ukrainian, U.S., and British environmental and social scientists and software engineers who are developing an artificial intelligence system that ranks and then prioritizes Ukrainian territory for humanitarian demining.
“There is no such system in the world as no one before has experienced the combination of having this huge need while also having the availability of technological and intellectual resources,” Pareniuk says.
That said, the two continue to share with the global community their expertise about the effects of radiation contamination, the dangers of nuclear power, and the importance of nuclear preparedness. They are among the scientists leading the conversation on radiation safety and radiation monitoring, developing algorithms that will provide nations with instructional roadmaps delineating what actions to take to safeguard communities and the environment should there be another nuclear disaster.
Their 2023 book Страшне, прекрасне та потворне в Чорнобилі: від катастрофи до лабораторії (The Terrible, the Beautiful, and the Ugly in Chornobyl: From the Disaster to the Laboratory) shares with readers stories about the Ukrainian scientists who are working to develop and promote radiation science and nuclear safety protocols to safeguard the world. In the book, Shavanova and Pareniuk also discuss the legal framework in place to prevent nuclear terrorism, an issue of great concern given that the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant have been occupied by Russia at various points since 2022.
Although the Chornobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters occurred decades ago, the dangers of radioactive fallout remain. Even for those who do not live near radiation-contaminated sites or experience the effects of radioactive fallout, defunct nuclear power plants should not be seen as “relics of the past” tethered to some “historical event that happened long, long ago,” Shavanova says.
She adds that the number of active nuclear power plants all over the world makes it all the more important to have conversations about nuclear preparedness, particularly as global geopolitical relations become more fraught and climate change creates extreme weather patterns that irreparably alter the world.
In 2023, both Shavanova and Pareniuk were featured in two short films produced by Inscience, an organization that promotes the visibility of scientists and doctors. Pareniuk is also a speaker with STEM is Fem, an organization that encourages young Ukrainian women to choose science, technology, engineering, and math professions to increase the representation of women in the engineering and technology fields in Ukraine.
Although war can often hinder collaboration and the exchange of scientific ideas, Shavanova and Pareniuk have continued to collaborate with their Japanese colleagues at Fukushima University on projects related to measuring radioactive contamination and assessing radiological consequences, and the future management of radiation sites such as Chornobyl and Fukushima.
Shavanova recalls that many Ukrainian scientists went to Japan to lend their expertise to help after the March 2011 earthquake and the following nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. She and her Japanese colleagues joke that only Ukraine and Japan truly understand the dangers of nuclear reactors and radiation fallout. Humor not only helps them cope with the nuclear devastation they have faced as citizens and scientists, but also strengthens their motivation to work collaboratively on solutions to decrease the chances of such disasters in the future.
As Shavanova and Pareniuk take turns answering my questions, I can sense the depth of their collegiality. It is not only shaped by their mutual interests in radiation biology, but it has also been informed by key moments in Ukrainian history. Not only do they manage projects together, conduct research together, and write articles and books together, but they are also very much a part of each other’s lives.
For instance, when Pareniuk needed to present a paper at the 2019 European Radiation Protection Week Conference, her son Dima was just three months old. She hoped he would be asleep during her presentation, but he was not. “He was screaming. I had no idea what to do with him,” Pareniuk says, until Shavanova took Dima from the venue and comforted him, so Pareniuk could continue her presentation.
War has affected Shavanova and Pareniuk as human beings perhaps even more greatly than it has affected them as scientists. Pareniuk still sleeps with her back to the window, so her body can help shield Dima, now six years old, from any broken glass should a missile strike their home. While his father fights in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and his mother conducts her research, Dima is often home with his grandmother. He worries when Pareniuk must work longer hours. Unlike some of his peers who have lost their parents, their homes, and their towns, Dima has not seen the destruction of war in real time. But he has a very lucid understanding of what war leaves behind. “Mom, I don’t like when you’re away for a long time,” he once said to Pareniuk, “because if I die, I want to die with you.”
Dima’s understanding of war is “not tragic,” Pareniuk says. She has not yet explained to Dima what death and dying are, but she hopes that in his youthful imagination, he “still thinks he’s immortal.”
Pareniuk stays in touch as best as she can with her colleagues and friends who are fighting in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Many of the soldiers are scientists, artists, farmers, teachers, doctors, and musicians who are fighting to preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty and right to self-determination.
Although the soldiers wield weapons and don the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they have not stopped being who they were before the full-scale invasion. “Even if you have [the] gun with you and you have the trench, you’re still a farmer, and as a farmer you need to plant flowers because it should be beautiful,” Pareniuk says.
“There was a scandal on the frontlines,” Pareniuk says and smiles. The word scandal alone captures the reaction of a Ukrainian general who arrived at the trenches to assess the daily situation one day and was dismayed at the sight of a lone sunflower, Ukraine’s national flower, growing from the soil—as if the brightness of its yellow ray florets undermined the military goals of the day. “Why is there a sunflower growing here? This is not a good look,” the general chided. The soldiers, tired and irritable from war, but still displaying a tenacity and strength that could not be undermined, respectfully replied, “Well, you know, the soil—it is asking for the plants to grow, so we just planted some.” When the general noted that that was not how “military fortification works,” a soldier answered, “But that’s how Ukrainians work.”
These are the “small pieces of joy, the small pieces of normal life” that Shavanova and Pareniuk cherish. Shavanova and Pareniuk continue to collect soil and vegetation samples during their field stints and analyze the results of DNA damage from plant cells that were exposed to various levels of radiation.
As they work, they envision a time when war remains a word only in the dictionary. Moments of humor become especially important as they grow angrier and more tired, trying hard to forge a sense of safety amidst the terror. “Humor helps us stay as cheerful as much as we can,” Pareniuk says. To others, “the humor might be dark,” or some may not understand, “but it is still fun—at least for us.”
Her favorite TikTok video shows Ukrainian soldiers measuring a cat so that they can make a hole large enough for it to get through. “They’re building the fortification, and they’re measuring the cat to make the hole for [it] because the cat also needs to be in safety. That’s how you’re remaining human on the front line.”
With limited access to the now heavily militarized Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, conducting research in Kyiv can still be stressful due to sporadic electricity and jarring air alerts. Continual attacks on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure mean that Kyiv can lack power for hours at a time. Pareniuk shares what it is like to wake up one day and only have about two hours of electricity, which you need to communicate with your colleagues. Still, she says, “you need to continue to do your work,” despite how intellectually and psychologically draining it can be.
“When you are a scientist, you are actually working using your brain, and when you’re tired, when you are depressed, when you don’t have enough sleep, you are exhausted,” Shavanova says. Such exhaustion is hardly conducive to doing scientific research and writing about the results. Shavanova also sees this weariness in the faces of her colleagues.
Both see the cost of war as the loss of people and their physical and psychological safety. “War is not only about the bombing,” Shavanova says. “It’s not about the science; it’s not even about the laboratory. Buildings, laboratories—all of that can be rebuilt. The cost of war is in human resources. Actually, it’s about your value, it’s about your future, it’s about safety.”
Although both Shavanova and Pareniuk have had many opportunities to go abroad to continue their research, particularly at the start of the full-scale invasion, they have chosen to remain in Ukraine because of their commitment to their scholarship, their community, and their country. For Shavanova, Ukraine as a country forms the very foundation upon which her research rests. But that doesn’t change the fact that with dwindling resources, there is only so much Ukrainian scientists can do. Weeks after my interview, Shavanova would join the Armed Forces of Ukraine herself.
“We are writing from the basement. That’s why we are not writing the papers,” Pareniuk says. “It is difficult to explain to a hiring committee why, in the course of ten years, I have so few publications, Shavanova adds.”
“But when you are fighting for your life, you can’t invest in your future.”
This story was supported by the International Women's Media Foundation’s Women on the Ground: Reporting from Ukraine’s Unseen Frontlines program in partnership with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
