In desperation, Vorobyev picked up the phone to notify the Ukrainian and Belarusian civil defense authorities. But the operator told him he had been forbidden from making long-distance calls. Eventually he managed to get a connection to Kiev on his direct line, which in their haste Brukhanov and his assistants had failed to have cut off. But when Vorobyev delivered his report, the civil defense duty officer who answered refused to believe that he was serious.
