Yes, fightfighter Vasily Ignatenko was a real person.

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Chernobyl episode four aired last night on HBO (Monday, May, 27) in the US on HBO and will air tonight (Tuesday, May 28) on Sky Atlantic in the UK. The five-part mini-series is a dramatisation of the deadly 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion and tells the story of the brave men and women who saved Europe from disaster. Vasily Ignatenko was one of the heroes who tracked the fire in the immediate aftermath of the explosion and episode three sheds light on his heartbreaking story.

Was firefighter Vasily Ignatenko a real person? WARNING: This article contains spoilers about Chernobyl on HBO Yes, firefighter Vasily Ignatenko, also spelt Vasil Ihnacienka, was a real person. He was 25-years-old at the time of the nuclear power plant disaster. An ex-military man, Vasily was invited by the Soviet Government to live and work in Pripyat, Chernobyl at the city’s Paramilitary Fire Station No. 6. He was one of the first group of firemen to arrive at the scene of the fire, exposing the entire group to lethal doses of radiation. Within a few hours, firefighters managed to extinguish most of the on-site fires except for the graphite fire in the reactor. WHERE IS CHERNOBYL FILMED?

Yes, fightfighter Vasily Ignatenko was a real person.

Speaking to Bradford Zone, Adam Nagaitis, who plays Vasily, explained that it was hard to find out information about his character, as Soviet propaganda painted the firefighters only as heroes - which they were - but did not detail what happened to them after the disaster. What was useful was the book Voices of Chernobyl by Ukrainian journalist Svetlana Alexievitch which included a chapter by his wife Lyudmilla Ignatenko. In the chapter, Lyudmilla detailed how she and Vasily were going to be travelling to Belarus on the morning of April, 26 to visit Vasily’s parents. Vasily had written permission to not be on call from 4am that morning but at around 1.30am the explosion at Chernobyl occurred. Lyudmilla and Vasily married in 1983, after meeting in 1979 as teenagers. At the time of the Chernobyl disaster, Lyudmilla was pregnant. In Chernobyl the series, Jessie Buckley plays Vasily’s wife. WHO IS IN THE CAST OF CHERNOBYL?

Adam Nagaitis plays firefighter Vasily Ignatenko in Chernobyl.

Sadly, Vasily died of radiation poisoning two weeks later on May 13, 1986, and his wife watched him endure a painful death which had drastic implications on her own health and her unborn baby. In Voices of Chernobyl, she recalled: “Every day I met a brand-new person.” She continued: “The last two days in the hospital — pieces of his lungs, of his liver, were coming out of his mouth. He was choking on his internal organs. I’d wrap my hand in a bandage and put it in his mouth, take out all that stuff.” He was one of the 27 firefighters who died of acute radiation sickness in the weeks following the disaster. Vasily was buried in a sealed zinc casket under cement tiles in Moscow, due to the radioactivity still present on his body. HOW MANY EPISODES ARE IN CHERNOBYL?

Adam Nagaitis as firefighter Vasily Ignatenko and Jessie Buckley as Lyudmilla Ignatenko