Chernobyl nuclear plant’s lab destroyed by Russian forces, says Ukraine

Russian forces have destroyed a functioning laboratory at the derelict Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Ukrainian state agency responsible for the exclusion zone said Tuesday.

According to the agency, the lab contained ‘highly active samples of radionuclides (unstable atoms of chemical elements that release radiation) that are now in the hands of the enemy’.

The agency said ‘we hope it will harm itself and not the civilised world’. The destroyed lab was built in 2015 at a cost of six million euros with support from the European Commission.

Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory agency on Monday had said that the radiation monitors around the plant had stopped working. The Russian military had seized the Chernobyl nuclear power plant at the beginning of the war.

Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory agency on Monday said radiation monitors around the plant had stopped working.

Russia seized the Chernobyl nuclear plant at the beginning of the war.

Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues for a straight fourth week, with millions of people forced to flee the war-torn eastern European country.

According to Mariupol officials, over 50 bombs are dropped every day, leading to massive destruction and death. Mariupol is among the worst-hit Ukrainian cities in a conflict that has also battered capital Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv, as well as numerous small towns and acres on acres of farmland.

On Wednesday, the Ukrainian government said Russian forces had seized 15 relief workers from a humanitarian convoy trying to get in food and other supplies into the city of Mariupol.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government renewed its call to the West to supply weapons to fight the Russian forces.

The government said, “Our armed forces and citizens are holding out with superhuman courage, but we cannot win a war without offensive weapons, without medium-range missiles that can be a means of deterrence.”

Amid the fighting, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – who has been highly criticised by Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy, has invited him for a special summit that will be held on Thursday.