Valery Alekseyevich Legasov (Russian: Валерий Алексеевич Легасов; 1 September 1936 – 27 April 1988) was a Soviet inorganic chemist, professor at Moscow State University, first deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, and a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.
He is best known for his efforts to contain the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. In August 1986, Legasov presented the findings of an investigation to the International Atomic Energy Agency at the United Nations Office at Vienna, detailing the actions and circumstances that led to the explosion in Chernobyl but neglecting to mention some of the RBMK reactor's design flaws.
Suffering from poor health because of radiation exposure, and frustrated that his attempts at reforming Soviet academic chemistry were rebuffed, he committed suicide in 1988.
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