A radiation survivor and expert, an elderly returnee, and a wildlife researcher paint a picture of life 40 years after the worst nuclear disaster.

A radiation protection engineer works in front of the sarcophagus covering the destroyed fourth reactor under the NSC, at the ChNPP [AFP]

A ChNPP operator stands in the control room of the destroyed 4th block of the plant [AFP]

Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine - It’s a freezing January morning, and the sun is glistening across a placid, snowy, forested landscape. But the calm is deceptive.

An air raid siren suddenly blares across the crisp winter air.

Two soldiers scour the skies, hands firmly gripping anti-aircraft guns mounted on pick-up trucks parked on a small, dilapidated bridge on a tributary of the Pripyat River.

Danger is all around, both in the surrounding land, which still carries the legacy of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, with pockets of intense radioactive contamination, and above, where Russian drones and missiles launched from just…