Russian Federation (RF) troops occupying the Chornobyl nuclear power station looted and destroyed a state-of-the-art radioactive materials analysis laboratory, Ukrainian government officials and news agencies said on Wednesday, 23 March.
A statement from the State Agency for Exclusion Zone Management (SAEZM) said the soldiers appeared to have demolished the facility intentionally. The statement said the value of the laboratory was six million Euros.
RF troops also stole from the laboratory samples, the statement said. Some of the samples are highly radioactive and dangerous to both the soldiers that took them and, potentially, to any human, plant or animal life the RF soldiers come into contact with.
“(T)he laboratory contained highly active samples and samples of radionuclides…, which today are in the hands of the enemy…we hope he will harm himself and not the civilized world,” the statement said in part.
A failed power generation experiment Chernobyl station in April 1986 caused a reactor to go out of control, leading to the world’s worst nuclear accident. In 2006 an international consortium erected a containment shelter around the ruined reactor. Scientists and engineers man the site 24/7 to monitor radiation levels and the shelter’s integrity.
The laboratory’s primary function was to analyze material samples collected by scientists from the reactor and surrounding locations for radiation levels, and particularly, the presence of dangerous isotopes.
According to a UNIAN news agency report the laboratory, built in 2015, was one of Europe’s most sophisticated facilities for radioactive material analysis.
RF troops overran the Chernobyl facility on the second day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They locked engineers then on duty at the site for more than three weeks, without access to fresh food or sleeping materials, before allowing a replacement shift to enter.
RF forces two weeks ago blasted exterior walls with tank cannon, and later set fires at a nuclear power station near the southern city Zaporizhzhia. Thus far, according to Ukrainian officials, the RF-caused damage has not caused any radiation leaks at either site.
The Chornobyl containment facility is some 70 km north of intense fighting between RF and Ukraine Armed Forces units near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. According to earlier SAEZM statements, major combat near the station itself could breach the containment shelter, and potentially allow radioactive dust and other materials currently sealed inside, to enter the environment.
