Leonid Telyatnikov

Leonid Petrovych Telyatnikov (; 25 January 1951 – 2 December 2004) was a Soviet, and later Ukrainian, fire brigade commander notable for his role in directing the early stages initial response to the Chernobyl disaster. Telyatnikov served many years as an officer in both Soviet and Ukrainian firefighting organizations, working in a variety of junior and senior leadership positions throughout his career.

Early life Leonid Petrovych Telyatnikov was born on January 25, 1951, in the village of Vvedenka, located in the Kustanay Rayon of the Kazakh SSR of the Soviet Union. (Now the Kostanay Rayon of Kazakhstan.) He completed his primary schooling there. Following his graduation, he worked for a time as an electrician at the Kustanay Auto Repair Plant before beginning his fire fighting career in 1968. Unalarmed, they believed that they had heard the sound of supersonic aircraft passing low overhead, which was a common occurrence in the area.

Arriving at the station around 1:45 in the morning, Telyatnikov found that the response to the fire had already begun. As commander of Paramilitary Fire Brigade No.2, charged with the fire protection of the station, he assumed command of the fire-fighting efforts. One of his first actions was to order a visual survey of the building to determine the locations of the many fires: "We surveyed the Unit 4 building. Through holes left by concrete panels smashed out we could see cable rooms, where no fires were observed. However, from the central reactor hall we clearly saw something like a blaze or glow... What was it? There is nothing except the reactor's "top face" in the central room, nothing was expected to burn there. We decided that it was the reactor itself that generated the glow. I called FFU-2 (the fire fighting unit serving the Chernobyl NPP only) and reported the situation for further transmission to Kiev... " Telyatnikov visited the Unit Four control room, and was told by Deputy Chief Engineer Anatoly Dyatlov that with the fire on the roof of the turbine hall under control, the priority must be the roofs of Unit 3 and the ventilation block. Around 02:30, Telyatnikov ordered three firemen to the roof of the ventilation block to relieve the first group of firefighters which had been fighting the fires ignited there since the beginning of the emergency. This initial group, which included Volodymyr Pravyk, Viktor Kibenok, and Vasily Ignatenko, was already suffering from the effects of radiation exposure and descended the fire escape from the roof with difficulty. Soon after, on the south side of the station, Telyatnikov ascended the fire escape to the roof of the turbine hall and ordered firefighters there to maintain a fire watch there until relieved.

By 03:30, Telyatnikov was himself beginning to experience nausea and retching, initial symptoms of radiation exposure. He was evacuated to Sanitary Unit No. 126 – the Pripyat Hospital – around this time.

By this time, Telyatnikov was beginning to suffer from the more severe effects of his radiation exposure. He had lost consciousness in the course of transfer from Pripyat to Kiev by bus, and his condition continued to deteriorate. It was at this time that he was first informed of the death of his subordinate Lt. Vladimir Pravik and the other five firemen who succumbed to ARS. He was released for the last time on December 22, 1986, ending seven months of medical treatment and recovery. He was honored with the Order of Lenin and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on September 25, 1986.

His death was publicized by news agencies and his family received a letter of condolences from President Vladimir Putin of Russia.