IAEA Experts Visit Nuclear Facility In Ukraine's Kharkiv, Radiation Levels Normal

Sumaira FH Published November 12, 2022 | 03:20 AM

VIENNA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th November, 2022) Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have visited a nuclear research facility in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, concluding that there had been no radiological release at the site, the IAEA said.

The expert mission to the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT), as well as the RADON radioactive waste management facility in the city, was carried out from November 8-10.

"Our three nuclear security and safeguards experts have been able to successfully complete this very important mission to Kharkiv, which has suffered greatly during the tragic war in Ukraine.... Although radiation levels were normal, the extent of damage to this nuclear research facility is dramatic and shocking, even worse than expected," IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a Friday statement.

The IAEA specified in its Friday release that despite the heavy damage to the KIPT facility, there was no indication of radiological release or diversion of declared nuclear material.

IAEA "experts checked the entire site area with a radiation monitor and did not identify any sources of radiation, with measurements at or around background levels," according to the IAEA statement.

In October, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, Chief of Russia's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, said that Ukraine has a scientific base for the production of a "dirty bomb" at the KIPT, and that the institute's scientists took part in the Soviet Union's nuclear program.

In March, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian nationalists had mined a reactor at an experimental nuclear facility at the KIPT, as part of a provocation.

Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, after the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian provocations. In response to Russia's operation, Western countries have rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Moscow and have been supplying weapons to Ukraine.