Staff at Ukraine's experimental nuclear site pick up pieces from Russian strikes
There is activity at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, but it’s not what scientists at this cutting-edge nuclear laboratory trained for
KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — There is activity at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, but it’s not what scientists at its cutting-edge nuclear laboratory trained for.
Staff at the U.S.-funded atomic research lab in northeastern Ukraine spend their days patching up the facility, which has been badly damaged by repeated Russian strikes.
More than a year after missiles first hit, the wind batters boarded-up windows and exposed insulation flaps. When the Associated Press visited this month, debris had been heaped in piles, and rocket parts sat near craters up to 2.5 meters (8 feet) deep. Staff say the site was struck some 100 times with rockets and bombs during the first months of the war, and attack remains a constant threat. Kharkiv, near the war's front line and the Russian border, is shelled almost daily from the neighboring Belgorod region of Russia.
Before Russia’s invasion, the institute was a jewel in the crown of Ukraine’s highly developed nuclear research sector. Its experimental reactor had opened only six months earlier, designed to offer training and research facilities and to make medical isotopes used in cancer treatment.
