Prosecutor Andrei Stepashin

A state prosecutor at the heart of the Soviet inquiry into the disaster, Stepashin is a company man tasked with steering the official story. He sits in judgment of the men who tried to contain the catastrophe, more interested in assigning blame within acceptable limits than in the physics of what actually happened.

McElhatton plays him with the flat, unhurried menace of a system that has already decided the verdict before the hearing starts. There's no shouting, just procedural calm — which is precisely what makes him unsettling, a reminder that bureaucracy can be as dangerous as radiation when it's protecting itself.