Vasily Ivanovich Ignatenko (Ukrainian: Василь Іванович Ігнатенко; Belarusian: Васіль Іванавіч Ігнаценка; Russian: Василий Иванович Игнатенко; 13 March 1961 – 13 May 1986) was a Soviet firefighter who was among the first responders to the Chernobyl disaster.

While on site, Ignatenko received a high dose of radiation, leading to his death at a radiological hospital in Moscow eighteen days later.

Vasily Ivanovich Ignatenko was born on 13 March 1961, on a collective farm in the Brahin District of the Gomel Region of the Byelorussian SSR.

[2] As a child, Vasily Ignatenko lived in the village of Sperizh'e with his family, helping with chores on the collective farm after school every day.

[2][3] On 26 April 1986, following the initial explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Paramilitary Fire Brigade No.

Using the unit three fire escape to reach the top of the 20-story structure, he, along with fellow firefighters Vladimir Tishura, Nikolai Titenok, and Nikolai Vashchuck were led by Lieutenants Viktor Kibenok and Volodymyr Pravyk in using water to extinguish these localized fires, while coordinating efforts to run firehoses up to the roof.

Ignatenko and the others were inhaling irradiated smoke, and working amid piles of ejected nuclear material, and soon began to experience the initial effects of acute radiation syndrome.

Firefighters ordered by Major Leonid Telyatnikov to ascend the fire escape and assist met them halfway up as they struggled to descend, vomiting uncontrollably and unable to fully support themselves without one another's help.

[10] Helped to the ground by fellow firefighters, Ignatenko was evacuated to the Pripyat Hospital, around 2:35 a.m.[6][11][12] Ignatenko was initially hospitalised in Pripyat, but as the extent of the disaster began to be understood, all of the firefighters and plant personnel suffering from radiation exposure were evacuated by road to the Boryspil Airport near Kyiv, and from there to Moscow by air.

6, a hospital operated by The Ministry of Medium Machine Building (the Soviet state nuclear energy agency) and the All-Union Physics Institute which had a specialized radiological department.

[14][15] There, in hopes of mitigating the effects of Acute Radiation Syndrome, Ignatenko was administered a bone marrow transplant on 2 May 1986, with his older sister as the donor.

[1][2][6][16] It was hoped the procedure would raise his white blood cell count, which had been lowered sharply by radiation exposure, leaving him extremely vulnerable to infection.

[17][18][15] Though Ignatenko recovered from the operation, the transplant was unsuccessful in producing the desired result and his condition continued to worsen.

[2] Vasily Ignatenko remained very close to his family throughout his life, regularly taking the train from Pripyat to visit them on weekends.

[21] However Ukrainian medical responder Alla Shapiro, in a 2019 interview with Vanity Fair, said such beliefs were false, and that once Ignatenko was showered and out of his contaminated clothing, he would not have been dangerous to others, precluding this possibility.

This story was adapted for use in streaming service HBO's 2019 miniseries Chernobyl (where Ignatenko and his wife were portrayed by Adam Nagaitis and Jessie Buckley respectively) and the subject of Ljudmilas Röst, a 2001 documentary film by Gunnar Bergdahl.