1940–2005
Borys Baranov
Power engineer, Hero of Ukraine
How do you stop a second explosion at Chornobyl? In 1986 shift supervisor Borys Baranov and two colleagues went down into a flooded space under the wrecked reactor and drained the water by hand. He worked at the plant for 19 more years, and in 2019 he was posthumously made a Hero of Ukraine.
Key accomplishments
- 1986: with Oleksii Ananenko and Valerii Bespalov, drained the water from under the wrecked Unit 4 at Chornobyl, preventing a possible second explosion
- Almost 30 years at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, as a shift supervisor among other posts (1976–2005)
- Hero of Ukraine (posthumously, Decree No. 468/2019)
- Order for Courage, 3rd class (posthumously, 2018)
From Kirov to Kryvyi Rih
Borys Baranov was born in 1940 in the village of Sozinovy, now in russia’s Kirov Oblast. In 1966 he began working in Ukraine, at the combined heat and power plant of the steelworks in Kryvyi Rih. He spent ten years there and earned an engineering degree by correspondence.
Shift supervisor
In 1976 Baranov moved to the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, where for many years he was a shift supervisor. He was working there when Unit 4 exploded on 26 April 1986.
Water under the reactor
There was still water under the wrecked reactor. If the molten nuclear fuel had reached it, a second, even more powerful explosion could have followed. Baranov, with the engineers Oleksii Ananenko and Valerii Bespalov, went down into the flooded space beneath the unit and opened the valves by hand to drain the water. A legend later grew around them: three divers swimming in the dark who soon died. In fact, research suggests the water was only about knee-deep, and all three survived. Baranov worked at the plant for another 19 years.
Remembered
Borys Baranov died in Kyiv on 6 April 2005. In 2018 he was posthumously awarded the Order for Courage, 3rd class, and on 27 June 2019 the president made him a Hero of Ukraine (posthumously), together with Oleksii Ananenko and Valerii Bespalov, for heroism during the clean-up of the Chornobyl disaster.
Why it matters today
Chornobyl could have been even worse, and part of the reason it wasn’t lies with people whose names went unknown for years. Borys Baranov was no diver from a legend: he was an engineer who knew his plant, understood what the water under the reactor could do, and went where he was needed. His story shows that the disaster was held back not only by firefighters and soldiers but by specialists who saw their job through to the end. The true story of three men who survived teaches as much as the myth: courage is not only sacrifice, it is also knowledge, a clear head and the will to act. Anyone who knows their work well may one day be the person others depend on.
