Russia has damaged a laboratory in Kharkiv containing enriched uranium more than 70 times: strikes could lead to large-scale radioactive contamination - NYT

Russians have damaged the laboratory in Kharkiv 74 times, where the experimental device "Neutron Source" is located, which still stores extremely dangerous materials such as uranium. If it is damaged, radioactive contamination could harm 640,000 Ukrainians.

This is reported by The New York Times, according to UNN.

Details

As the publication writes, the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which helped develop the first Soviet atomic bombs, agreed to stop working with weapons-grade uranium in 2010, sending its stockpiles to Russia at the insistence of the United States as part of nuclear non-proliferation.

It still stores extremely dangerous materials, such as uranium, enriched much more radioactively than the fuel used in a nuclear power plant. The institute does not disclose the exact amount of uranium on site

After the 2022 invasion, scientists stopped experiments and put the "Neutron Source" into a long-term shutdown mode. But the uranium remained - as did the danger of its leakage.

The building has been damaged so many times by drones, missiles, and artillery that it could not have been accidental, Ukrainian authorities claim. In the indictment, they accused five Russian officers of targeting it, and it states that a direct hit could contaminate an area inhabited by about 640,000 people. Ukrainian prosecutors accused the officers of ecocide, or attempting to harm the environment as a weapon of war. The laboratory building is located just 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

It is noted that the building was not built to withstand attacks. Explosions outside shake the control room daily. Inside, the shock wave from an explosion knocked plaster off the wall near the device.

In 2022, a transformer substation was damaged, plunging the building into darkness for months. Scientists relied on backup heating to prevent cooling water from freezing and potentially damaging the aluminum cladding on the uranium fuel rods.

In other rooms of the institute, scientists continue thermonuclear fusion experiments with radioactive hydrogen, despite daily attacks on Kharkiv. 

Recall

IAEA teams at the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne NPPs recorded explosions and drone flights on the night of September 10. Although no direct damage was caused to the stations, the agency's leadership warns: any hostilities near nuclear facilities pose a serious danger.