Mikhail Gorbachev for one

https://slate.com/technology/2013/01/chernobyl-and-the-fall-...

Edit: Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe by Serhii Plokhy also makes a claim that the accident let to political instability in the Ukraine which certainly didn't help with the integrity of the SU.

Gorbachev is directly responsible for collapse of USSR, — he ruled it when it collapsed. So he is responsible for both of the disasters.

Shouldn't you be a little skeptical, when he tries to blame one of his disasters for another?

Of course I'm sceptical - but given other accounts of the times that I have read I haven't seen anything in his account that seems fundamentally wrong.

Well, Mikhail Gorbachev has actually written about specifically this. You'd think he'd be a reliable source.

About as credible as you're going to get, I imagine

My perception of it is that the collapse had already started and was probably inevitable, but the Chernobyl disaster accelerated it and was a metaphorical nail in the coffin, further reducing any chance there might have been at recovery.