The institute, which once had a connection to atomic bombs, is now completely safe, stated Mykola Shulha, the general director of "KhFTI," in 2022. As of 2025, the institute operates normally. No emergencies have been recorded, UNN reports with reference to the press service of the National Science Center "Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology."
Details
The institution recalled an article in The New York Times, dated September 9, 2025, which discusses probable attacks on Ukrainian nuclear facilities.
One such facility is located on the territory of the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology
In the statement from the official page of the "Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology" center, it is emphasized:
- the institute operates normally;
- no emergencies have been recorded - none.
Please remain calm. All facilities are operating normally.
It is emphasized that at this facility, the probability of a large-scale nuclear accident is excluded.
The institution also recalled that similar statements were made several years ago by the former general director of the institute, Mykola Shulha, after the shelling on March 6, 2022.
Reference - text by the director of "KhFTI", 2022
"The facility is absolutely safe in terms of physical operation. Currently, 37 fuel assemblies are loaded. This is the same fuel as at nuclear power plants. It is impossible to make nuclear weapons from these fuel assemblies. The fakes that have recently appeared in the press, claiming that our institute is conducting work on creating nuclear weapons, are absolutely untrue. What is being done at the institute is under full control of the IAEA. They visit here several times a year, and there are no remarks. Several shells hit the territory of the NSC "KhFTI" from the Russian side. Thank God that the main part of the installation remained intact. But what is happening around the institute is significant destruction. Including the death of people," Mykola Shulha explained in March 2022.
Recall
The New York Times, in its material, published information that the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which helped develop the first Soviet atomic bombs, "still stores extremely dangerous materials, such as uranium enriched much more radioactively than the fuel used at a nuclear power plant."
The building has been damaged so many times by drones, missiles, and artillery that it could not have been a coincidence. ... The laboratory building is located only 22 kilometers from the front line of Europe's largest war in eight decades, and Ukrainian authorities claim that the facility has been damaged by Russian munitions 74 times