‘Not great, not terrible’: Why nobody trusts Russia to tell the truth about plague

As whispers circulate of plague in faraway Siberia, it’s worth remembering that Russian obfuscation is so ingrained that it’s become a meme. In HBO’s dramatized 2019 series about the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, a Russian atomic scientist scoffs at a radiation reading that suggests a major calamity is taking place. “Not great, not terrible,” says the fictionalized version of Anatoly Dyatlov, the real-life deputy chief engineer at Chernobyl in April 1986, as he looks at a dosimeter noting 3.6 roentgen per hour, just below a critical radiation level. Except that reading was not accurate. Not even close.