Photo: AP

According to Greenpeace, radiation levels have actually increased in parts of Ukraine that were contaminated by the 1986 nuclear plant explosion. Key isotopes, such as cesium-137 and strontium-90, are still lingering in the forests.

As Russia, Ukraine and Belarus continue to cut and restrict funding for testing, “people continue to eat and drink foods with dangerously high radiation levels,” NBC reports.

An estimated five million people live in the affected areas, burning radioactive wood to stay warm, drinking radioactive water and eating produce from their radioactive gardens. The monetary compensation from the state just isn’t enough and they’re too poor to do anything about it.

“We have milk and bake bread ourselves – that yes, is with radiation,” Ukraine village resident Halina Chmulevych, a single mother of two, told Greenpeace. “Everything here is with radiation. Of course, it worries me but what can I do?”

The 54-page report also examines Fukushima, which is also fucked and its forests are also turning into “storage for radioactive contamination,” expected to be hazardous for “decades and centuries to come.”

Contact the author of this post at marina.galperina@gawker.com.