Original subtitles

SHCHERBINA: I am pleased to report that the situation

in Chernobyl is stable.

STELLAN SKARSGARD: Shcherbina is part of the system.

He is very well aware that people die, but the system survives.

When Shcherbina first meets Legasov,

he thinks that the accident is basically nothing.

When it comes to Chernobyl, he sees that

everything is much worse than he thought.

- LEGASOV: Are you all right? - Of course.

He is a pragmatic man and a man of reality.

He knew how to get the machinery of the state to work.

Without Shcherbina, it could have been planetary-wide.

LEGASOV: They're too close.

This isn't a fire.

This is a fissioning reactor core burning at over 2,000 degrees.

Tell me how to put it out.

SHCHERBINA: Every generation must know its own suffering.

You'll do it because it must be done.

You'll do it because nobody else can.

And if you don't, millions will die.

If you tell me that's not enough, I won't believe you.

SKARSGARD: The system was guilty.

And that's the interesting thing.

The idea of a system that wasn't fallible,

that was perfect, led to this accident.

Today more than ever, it's really important to search out the truth.

The official position of the State

is that a global nuclear catastrophe is not possible in the Soviet Union.