Staff at Ukraine’s experimental nuclear site pick up pieces from Russian strikes
KHARKIV, Ukraine—there is activity at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, but it’s not what scientists at its cutting-edge nuclear laboratory trained for. Staff at the Us-funded atomic research lab in northeastern Ukraine spend their days patching up the facility, which has been badly damaged by repeated Russian strikes.
More than a year after missiles first hit, the wind batters boarded-up windows and exposed insulation flaps. When the Associated Press visited this month, debris had been heaped in piles, and rocket parts sat near craters up to 2.5 meters (8 feet) deep. Staff say the site was struck some 100 times with rockets and bombs during the first months of the war, and attack remains a constant threat. Kharkiv, near the war’s front line and the Russian border, is shelled almost daily from the neighboring Belgorod region of Russia.
Before Russia’s invasion, the institute was a jewel in the crown of Ukraine’s highly developed nuclear research sector. Its experimental reactor had opened only six months earlier, designed to offer training and research facilities and to make medical isotopes used in cancer treatment.
While those fearing a nuclear accident have focused their attention on Ukraine’s huge Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is under Russian control, the Kharkiv lab’s small reactor also poses a risk, though so far there have been no leaks.
Mykola Shulga, general director of the institute’s National Science Center, said the damage is “significant—but we are doing repairs on our own.”
“The strikes on this installation were intentional,” Shulga said, in front of a modern gray building whose panels have been ripped off or are pocked with shrapnel holes. “This wall here was hit with seven missiles.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency has also accused Russia of “sustained targeting” of the research lab. A delegation from the agency visited in November and found nearly all buildings on the site were damaged, “many of them probably beyond repair.” IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi called the extent of the damage “shocking” and worse than expected.
The one positive note, IAEA inspectors said, was that there had been no release of radiation from the lab’s small experimental reactor.
Ukraine’s nuclear inspectorate said shelling last year damaged the facility’s heating, cooling and ventilation systems. An electrical substation and diesel generators were destroyed, leaving the site without electricity for a time.
The Prosecutor’s Office and the Security Service of Ukraine have opened criminal cases for alleged war crimes and “ecocide”— one of several proceedings accusing Russia of environmental destruction.
“Have a look,” said Galyna Tolstolutska, head of the department of radiation damage and radiation materials science.
“Here, you see. It used to be control panel. Most certainly it’s of no use anymore,” she said, looking around a room of equipment wrecked when the ceiling was shattered by a bomb.“this entire place was exposed to rain, snow, anything.”