Jew, “the last child of Chernobyl”, serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and defends Ukraine, – investigation by Ukrainian journalists

On April 26, 1986, in Chernobyl, a boy named Yevhen was born into a Jewish family. He is called “the last child of Chernobyl.” Forty years later, he serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and defends Ukraine from Russian aggressors. This story connects Chernobyl, Jewish memory, Soviet lies, and the current war of Russia against Ukraine.

Source: video (Ukr.) MARICHKA Padalko from April 23, 2026.

Born on the night of Chernobyl — now defends Ukraine

On April 26, 1986, on the night of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, a boy named Yevhen was born in the small town of Chernobyl. At that time, the world did not yet understand what had happened. The Soviet system was still trying to contain the catastrophe within its usual formulas: “nothing serious,” “keep working,” “no panic allowed.”

But reality had already changed.

That night, the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was destroyed. Radioactive substances were released into the air. Communication with Pripyat, Ivankiv, and Kyiv became problematic. Doctors in the Chernobyl hospital tried to deliver babies without full information about what was happening nearby.

It was on this night that Yevhen was born — a child who is today called the last child of Chernobyl.

This story became widely known thanks to the video by MARICHKA Padalko from April 23, 2026. In it, the journalist told how she and her colleagues managed to find the man born in Chernobyl on April 26, 1986, and meet him during the new tragedy — the great war of Russia against Ukraine.

Today, Yevhen is 40 years old. He lives in Ukraine and serves in the Ukrainian army.

A person born on the night of one of the most terrible technological disasters of the 20th century now defends the country from Russian drones.

Why this story is important for Israel and the Jewish audience

There is a detail in this story that cannot be overlooked: Yevhen was born into a Jewish family.

For many, Chernobyl is primarily associated with the nuclear accident. But before the catastrophe, it was not only a city near the nuclear power plant. It was a place with a deep Jewish history. Jewish families lived in Chernobyl, preserving the memory of the old shtetl, neighbors, houses, yards, and the usual life that was destroyed not only by radiation but also by the forced exodus of people after 1986.

For the Israeli audience, this is especially important. Chernobyl is not an alien geography. Thousands of people from Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other regions of the former USSR live in Israel, for whom the memory of Chernobyl is part of their family history. Many have relatives, acquaintances, neighbors, or friends who were directly or indirectly affected by the accident.

Yevhen’s story connects several layers at once: Jewish memory of Eastern Europe, Ukrainian tragedy, Soviet silence, and the current war.

This is not just the biography of one person. It is a symbol of how history returns to people through decades.

What happened in the maternity hospital on the night of the accident

According to the participants of the events: on the night of the accident, there was no clear understanding of the scale of the catastrophe in the Chernobyl hospital. The obstetrician Petro, who delivered the baby, recalled that he was called to the maternity hospital because the situation with the woman in labor required medical intervention.

He walked to the hospital on foot.

Spring, city, an ordinary night. There was still no feeling that the usual life had ended.

The woman in labor — Yevhen’s mother — came to the hospital on foot with her mother. The contractions began at night. According to memories, Chernobyl was a small town where many things were decided simply: the family got up, gathered, and went to the maternity hospital.

Then the alarming details began.

The doctors needed an anesthesiologist from Pripyat, but there was no connection. It was impossible to reach Pripyat, Ivankiv, or Kyiv. At first, it seemed like a technical problem. But then it became clear: something much more serious had happened nearby.

One of the midwives came with news of the explosion at the nuclear station. But even then, not everyone immediately realized what it meant. In the delivery room, the life of the woman and the child was the priority. The doctor was not thinking about politics, the system, or radiation, but about how to deliver the baby and save the mother.

Yevhen was born alive, pink, and cried.

The doctors rejoiced because at that moment it was the main thing: the child was born.

Only later did it become clear that this birth was the last in Chernobyl of that era.

Soviet silence and people who saved themselves

One of the most difficult elements of this story is the lack of normal information.

According to eyewitness accounts, Pripyat began to be evacuated centrally, but Chernobyl found itself in a different situation. People left as best they could. Some looked for a car, some gathered things, some simply did not wait for orders.

Yevhen’s mother and the baby were taken to Kyiv. There were almost no documents: in Chernobyl, she was only given a birth certificate for the child. Further, the family saved themselves.

On the way in Ivankiv, cars and people were already being checked for radiation. They washed the wheels, checked the clothes, tried to understand who and what was being brought from the danger zone. But until that moment, people were essentially moving through space where information was fragmentary, and decisions had to be made quickly.

This is what makes the story so terrifying.

Not just the explosion. Not just radiation. Not just evacuation.

The terrifying thing was the Soviet model of behavior: to hide, not explain, keep people at their workplaces, not tell the truth in time.

Chernobyl became a symbol not only of a technological catastrophe but also of state lies.

Jewish Chernobyl: memory that cannot be erased

In the video by MARICHKA Padalko, a separate place is given to the conversation about the Jewish community of Chernobyl. Eyewitnesses recall that there were many Jews in the city. For them, Chernobyl was not an abstract point on the map, but a home: with neighbors, families, yards, friendship, work, hospital, maternity hospital, schools, and ordinary life.

After the accident, this world disappeared.

Some went to Kyiv. Some later ended up in Israel. Some scattered across Ukraine, Europe, America. As often happened in Jewish history of the 20th century, home again became a place that had to be left.

For NAnovosti — News of Israel this story is important precisely because it shows: Ukrainian history and Jewish memory do not exist separately. They are intertwined in the destinies of specific people.

Yevhen is not a textbook image. He is not a “character for an anniversary.” He is a living person, born into a Jewish family in Chernobyl on the night of the accident, raised in Ukraine, and today serving in the Ukrainian army.

This line sounds especially strong in 2026, when the 40th anniversary of Chernobyl coincides with the ongoing war of Russia against Ukraine.

From Soviet catastrophe to Russian war

There are stories where the biography itself becomes a symbol of the era.

Yevhen was born on the night when the Soviet system tried not to tell people the truth about the nuclear threat. Forty years later, he serves in the army of a country that post-Soviet imperial Russia is trying to destroy.

Then the threat came through the reactor explosion and state lies.

Today the threat comes through missiles, drones, strikes on cities, energy, civilian infrastructure, and people.

According to Yevhen in the video, he has been serving since the end of 2024. Before the war, he was a jeweler, working with gold and silver. Now his life is connected with the front and defense against drones. This is also an important detail: a person with a profession requiring precision, accuracy, and attention to detail found himself in a war where precision often decides the question of life and death.

He does not portray himself as a hero. There is no pathos in his words. He speaks simply: the draft notice came, he was not going to run away, he passed the commission and found a place where he could be useful.

It is in this simplicity that there is great strength.

Why Israel should pay close attention to such stories

For Israel, the war in Ukraine is not a distant European topic. It is connected with security, with Iran, with the Russian-Iranian rapprochement, with the fate of Jewish communities, with the memory of the Soviet past, and with the question of how the world responds to aggression.

Iran — an enemy of Ukraine and Israel — has become part of this war through drones, technologies, and military support for Russia. When Ukrainian soldiers defend the sky from drones, they are essentially facing the same logic of terror that is well understood in Israel: to strike from afar, to frighten the civilian population, to disrupt normal life.

Yevhen’s story is important for this reason as well.

A Jew born in Chernobyl today defends Ukraine from a threat in which Russian aggression, Iranian technologies, and the old imperial habit of considering other people’s lives as expendable material are intertwined.

NAnovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency considers such stories not as random emotional plots, but as part of a big picture: the Jewish fate in Ukraine, the Ukrainian struggle for independence, and the Israeli understanding of security are much more closely connected than it seems at first glance.

“The last child of Chernobyl” as a symbol of life

In 2026, Yevhen turned 40 years old. This is not just a round date.

It is 40 years after Chernobyl. 40 years after the night when the maternity hospital was still working, but the city was already entering the history of the catastrophe. 40 years after the mother and baby were taken out of the danger zone, and the Soviet system still did not tell people the whole truth.

Today this person stands on the side of life.

He defends Ukraine.

He serves in the Ukrainian army.

He did not leave the country, although the very fact of his Jewish origin could have made another trajectory quite possible. In the video, a detail is mentioned: when they were looking for him, it was assumed that he might be in Israel or Germany. But he turned out to be in Ukraine — and not just in Ukraine, but in service.

This changes the perception of the whole story.

“The last child of Chernobyl” is not only a memory of the past. It is not a museum plaque or a plot for an anniversary. It is a person who continues to act in the present.

Chernobyl, Ukraine, and Jewish memory: why this story will remain

The Chernobyl tragedy is often perceived through numbers: the date of the accident, the level of radiation, the number of evacuees, medical consequences, the exclusion zone.

But memory is not only held by numbers.

It is held by faces.

By the mother who remembers every detail of the night of the birth.

By the doctor who could not reach the anesthesiologist and thought that if the woman in labor died, he would “die next to her.”

By the baby who was taken out of Chernobyl.

By the adult man who, 40 years later, talks about service, the front, drones, the small things that help to hold on, and Kyiv, where people sometimes seem to forget that the war continues.

This is the strength of Yevhen’s story.

It does not allow Chernobyl to become an abstract memorial day. It brings the catastrophe back to a human scale.

And at the same time shows that Ukrainian history did not end in 1986. It continues now — in war, in service, in choice, in resistance.

What is known about Yevhen Rozenblit from the video by MARICHKA Padalko

From the video by MARICHKA Padalko on April 23, 2026, it is known that Yevhen Rozenblit was born on April 26, 1986, in Chernobyl — on the very night when the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred. His passport states this date and place of birth: the city of Chernobyl.

He is called the last child born in Chernobyl in the 20th century. In 2026, Yevhen turned 40 years old.

His mother at that time already lived and worked in Kyiv, but came to give birth in Chernobyl, where the family’s parental home was located. When the contractions began at night, she went to the maternity hospital on foot with her mother. Yevhen’s grandfather stayed home with little Anya — the older sister of the future newborn.

The birth took place in the first hours after the accident, when the hospital still did not understand the scale of the catastrophe. The doctors could not reach Pripyat, Ivankiv, or Kyiv. It was difficult to get help, but the child was born alive, pink, and immediately cried.

After the birth, the mother and baby were taken out of Chernobyl to Kyiv. According to her, in Chernobyl, she only managed to get a birth certificate for the child. On the road, in Ivankiv, the car and people were checked for radiation. The family reached Kyiv, where they had an apartment.

The story also emphasizes that Yevhen was born into a Jewish family. For this story, this is an important detail: before the accident, Chernobyl was a city with a significant Jewish community and was previously perceived as a Jewish town.

Before serving in the army, Yevhen worked as a jeweler — dealing with gold and silver products. Since the end of 2024, he has been serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to him, after the draft notice, he was not going to evade, passed the military medical commission, and found a place where he could be useful.

Now his service is related to countering drones. Before the war, Yevhen was interested in drones with a friend, but now, as he says, he works “against drones.” Journalists met him in eastern Ukraine, about 25–30 kilometers from the line of military confrontation.

The video also reveals that Yevhen has an older sister, Anya. She has long lived in Israel (Tirat Carmel). Yevhen’s father died about a year before the release of the story or shortly before the filming, and his mother was left alone.

On the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl tragedy, Yevhen was awarded a commemorative award. The National Register of Records of Ukraine recognized him as “the last child born in Chernobyl.”