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RUSSIAN troops occupying the Chernobyl nuclear power plant have “looted and destroyed” a laboratory at the site, the BBC reported, citing claims by Ukrainian officials.

The State Agency of Ukraine for Exclusion Zone Management said the Russians had damaged their Central Analytical Laboratory – which processed a large quantity of radioactive waste.

The Ukraine agency said the laboratory had “highly active samples and samples of radionuclides, which today are in the hands of the enemy”, BBC reported.

The lab, which cost about €6 million (about R97m) to set up, had also contained “valuable analytical equipment” that was not available elsewhere in Europe, the agency said this week.

Chernobyl – the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986 – is not a working power station but still requires constant management.

Russian troops captured it in the first few days of the war last month, and had kept workers there for weeks before some were released. | IANS

Russia

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin says Russia will only accept payments in rubles for gas deliveries to “unfriendly countries”, which include all EU members, after Moscow was hit by unprecedented sanctions over Ukraine.

“I have decided to implement a set of measures to transfer payment for our gas supplies to unfriendly countries into Russian rubles,” Putin said this week during a televised government meeting, ordering the changes to be implemented.

“Russia will continue supplying gas in the volumes fixed in earlier contracts,” Putin said.

The Russian space agency also said it would insist its intermational partners pay it in rubles.

| AFP

A FIRE has damaged a main bridge in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, razing dozens of shops beneath and causing traffic chaos.

No one was hurt in the fire that broke out yesterday during a power outage in Africa’s largest economy.

“The blaze gutted the Eko bridge. A section of the bridge at Apongbon in Ebute Ero was affected. The bridge has been physically damaged,” Ibrahim Farinloye of the National Emergency Management Agency said.

Eko bridge is one of three flyovers linking mainland Lagos to the upscale and business districts on the islands of the city which sit between a lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean.

The authorities have to conduct integrity tests to see if the flyover can reopen.

Oil-producer Nigeria has suffered nationwide blackouts in the past few weeks, with homes and businesses forced to rely on fuel-powered generators to keep the lights and power on.

Nigeria