Yevhen, born in a Jewish family in Chernobyl on April 26, 1986, is known as the “last child of Chernobyl.” Forty years later, he serves in Ukraine’s army.

Born on the night of Chernobyl — now defending Ukraine

On April 26, 1986, on the night of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, a boy named Yevhen was born in the small town of Chernobyl. At that moment, the world still did not understand what had happened. The Soviet system was still trying to hold the catastrophe inside its usual formulas: “nothing terrible,” “keep working,” “do not cause panic.”

But reality had already changed.

That night, the fourth reactor unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was destroyed. Radioactive substances were released into the air. Communication with Pripyat, Ivankiv, and Kyiv became a problem. Doctors at the Chernobyl hospital were trying to deliver a baby without having complete information about what was happening nearby.

It was on that very night that Yevhen came into the world — the child now known as the last child of Chernobyl.

This story became known to a wider audience thanks to a video by Marichka Padalko, published on April 23, 2026. In it, the journalist explained how she and her colleagues managed to find the man who had been born in Chernobyl on April 26, 1986, and meet him during another tragedy — Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

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

A man born on the night of one of the worst technological disasters of the twentieth century is now defending his country from Russian drones.

Why this story matters for Israel and the Jewish audience

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

For many people, Chernobyl is associated first of all with the nuclear disaster. But before the accident, it was not only a town near a nuclear power plant. It was also a place with deep Jewish history. Jewish families lived in Chernobyl; there was memory of an old shtetl, of neighbors, homes, courtyards, and ordinary life — a life that after 1986 was destroyed not only by radiation, but also by forced departure.

For the Israeli audience, this is especially important. Chernobyl is not a foreign geography. Thousands of Israelis come from Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and other parts of the former Soviet Union. For many of them, the memory of Chernobyl is part of family history. Many have relatives, friends, neighbors, or acquaintances who were affected by the disaster directly or indirectly.

Yevhen’s story brings together several layers at once: the Jewish memory of Eastern Europe, the Ukrainian tragedy, Soviet concealment, and today’s war.

This is not simply one man’s biography. It is a symbol of how history returns to people decades later.

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

According to the participants in these events, there was no clear understanding in the Chernobyl hospital that night of the scale of the catastrophe. Petro, the obstetrician who delivered the baby, recalled that he was called to the maternity ward because the woman in labor needed medical assistance.

He walked to the hospital on foot.

It was spring. A small town. An ordinary night. There was still no feeling that ordinary life had ended.

The woman in labor — Yevhen’s mother — came to the hospital on foot together with her own mother. Her contractions had begun at night. According to the recollections, Chernobyl was a small town where many things were simple: the family got up, gathered themselves, and walked to the maternity ward.

Then the disturbing details began.

The doctors needed an anesthesiologist from Pripyat, but there was no communication. They could not reach Pripyat, Ivankiv, or Kyiv. At first it looked like a technical problem. But later it became clear that something much more serious had happened nearby.

One of the midwives arrived with news of an explosion at the nuclear power plant. Even then, however, not everyone immediately understood what it meant. In the delivery room, the life of the woman and the child came first. The doctor was not thinking about politics, the system, or radiation. He was thinking about how to deliver the baby and save the mother.

Yevhen was born alive, pink, and crying.

The doctors were happy because, at that moment, this was the most important thing: a child had come into the world.

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

Soviet silence and people saving themselves

One of the hardest elements of this story is the absence of normal information.

According to eyewitness accounts, Pripyat began to be evacuated in an organized way, but Chernobyl found itself in a different situation. People left however they could. Some searched for a car, some packed their belongings, and some simply did not wait for an order.

Yevhen’s mother was taken to Kyiv with her newborn child. There were almost no documents: in Chernobyl she was given only a certificate confirming the birth. After that, the family had to save itself.

On the way, in Ivankiv, cars and people were already being checked for radiation. Wheels were washed, clothing was checked, and officials tried to understand who and what was carrying contamination out of the danger zone. Until that point, people had been moving through a space where information was fragmentary and decisions had to be made quickly.

That is what makes the story so frightening.

Not only the explosion. Not only the radiation. Not only the evacuation.

What was frightening was the Soviet model of behavior: to hide, not to explain, to keep people at their workplaces, and not to 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 Marichka Padalko’s video, special attention is given to the Jewish community of Chernobyl. Eyewitnesses recall that there were many Jews in the town. For them, Chernobyl was not an abstract point on a map, but a home: with neighbors, families, courtyards, friendships, work, a hospital, a maternity ward, schools, and everyday life.

After the accident, that world disappeared.

Some people left for Kyiv. Some later ended up in Israel. Others scattered across Ukraine, Europe, and America. As so often in twentieth-century Jewish history, home once again became a place that had to be left behind.

For NAnews — Israel News, this story matters precisely because it shows that Ukrainian history and Jewish memory do not exist separately. They are intertwined in the lives of real people.

Yevhen is not an image from a textbook. 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 powerful in 2026, when the 40th anniversary of Chernobyl coincides with Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.

From a Soviet catastrophe to Russia’s war

There are stories in which a biography itself becomes a symbol of an era.

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

Back then, the threat came through a reactor explosion and the lies of the state.

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

According to Yevhen in the video, he has been serving since late 2024. Before the war, he was a jeweler, working with gold and silver. Now his life is connected to the front and protection against drones. This is also an important detail: a man whose profession required precision, care, and attention to detail found himself in a war where precision often determines life or death.

He does not present himself as a hero. There is no pathos in his words. He speaks simply: he received a call-up notice, he did not plan to run away, he passed the commission, and he found a place where he could be useful.

There is great strength in that simplicity.

Why Israel should pay close attention to stories like this

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

Iran — the enemy of both Ukraine and Israel — has become part of this war through drones, technology, and military support for Russia. When Ukrainian soldiers defend the sky against drones, they are facing a logic of terror that Israel understands very well: strike from a distance, frighten civilians, and destroy normal life.

Yevhen’s story matters for this reason too.

A Jew born in Chernobyl is today defending Ukraine from a threat in which Russian aggression, Iranian technology, and an old imperial habit of treating human life as expendable have become intertwined.

NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency sees such stories not as random emotional episodes, but as part of a larger picture: Jewish fate in Ukraine, Ukraine’s struggle for independence, and Israel’s understanding of security are much more closely connected than they may seem at first glance.

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

In 2026, Yevhen turned 40. This is not just a round number.

It is 40 years after Chernobyl. Forty years after the night when the maternity ward was still working, but the town had already entered the history of catastrophe. Forty years after a mother and her newborn were taken out of the danger zone, while the Soviet system still had not told people the whole truth.

Today, this man stands on the side of life.

He serves in the Ukrainian army.

He did not leave the country, although his Jewish background alone could have made another path entirely possible. In the video, one detail is especially telling: when they were looking for him, some assumed that he might be in Israel or Germany. But he turned out to be in Ukraine — and not merely in Ukraine, but in service.

This changes the perception of the entire story.

The “last child of Chernobyl” is not only memory of the past. It is not a museum label and not just an anniversary story. 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 viewed through numbers: the date of the accident, radiation levels, the number of evacuees, medical consequences, and the exclusion zone.

But memory is not held by numbers alone.

By a mother who remembers every detail of the night she gave birth.

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

By a newborn taken out of Chernobyl.

By an adult man who, 40 years later, speaks about service, the front, drones, small things that help him hold on, and Kyiv, where people sometimes seem to have forgotten that the war is still going on.

This is the power of Yevhen’s story.

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

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

What is known about Yevhen Rozenblit from Marichka Padalko’s video

From Marichka Padalko’s video of 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 lists that date and place of birth: the town of Chernobyl.

He is called the last child born in Chernobyl in the twentieth century. In 2026, Yevhen turned 40.

His mother was already living and working in Kyiv at the time, but she came to Chernobyl to give birth because the family’s parental home was there. When contractions began at night, she walked to the maternity ward with her mother. Yevhen’s grandfather stayed home with little Anya — the future newborn’s older sister.

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 by phone. Help was difficult to obtain, but the child was born alive, pink, and crying immediately.

After the birth, the mother and newborn were taken out of Chernobyl to Kyiv. According to her, in Chernobyl she managed to receive only a certificate confirming the birth. On the road, in Ivankiv, both the car and the 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. This is an important detail: before the accident, Chernobyl was a town with a visible Jewish community and was once perceived as a Jewish town.

Before serving in the army, Yevhen worked as a jeweler, making items from gold and silver. Since late 2024, he has been serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to him, after receiving a call-up notice, he did not intend to avoid service, passed the military medical commission, and found a place where he could be useful.

His current service is connected to countering drones. Before the war, Yevhen had been interested in drones together with a friend, but now, as he says himself, he works “against drones.” Journalists met him in eastern Ukraine, about 25–30 kilometers from the line of contact.

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

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

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)