VIENNA: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has has said that it out a joint safeguards and nuclear security expert mission to a nuclear research facility in Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Kharkiv this week and found it had been heavily damaged by shelling during the current military conflict in the country, but without any indication of radiological release or diversion of declared nuclear material.
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The aim of the mission was to assess the extent of the damage to the KIPT site as a result of heavy shelling hitting the facility, including on 6 March and again on 25 June, and to see whether these attacks had impacted its physical protection system. This also met the Agency’s commitment to perform such a mission once the security situation allowed travel to the site.
Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said the 8-10 November mission to the Kharkiv Institute of Technology (KIPT) – the IAEA’s first to this research site since the conflict began more than eight months ago – also visited the RADON radioactive waste management facility in the same city which so far remains intact.
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Director General Grossi said “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. We had previously received information from Ukraine about extensive damage to the city’s nuclear research facility, but this was the first time we could see the facility for ourselves and inform the world about the difficult situation there. Although radiation levels were normal, the extent of damage to this nuclear research facility is dramatic and shocking, even worse than expected. The sheer scale and intensity of the sustained targeting of KIPT violate all the seven indispensable nuclear safety and security pillars I outlined at the beginning of the conflict.”
