Yep, the Chernobyl fallout. Messed up Belarus pretty bad thanks to the winds carrying it over from Ukraine, so I can see a sort of parallel between her and Claudia there--and like I said below, they pretty much both end up being quite creepy and sad at the same time. So that was my thought process.

(I'm also just reasoning it out, don't feel too bad. XD I was mostly going on gut instinct with this post.)