Lviv, March 23: Russian military forces have destroyed a new laboratory at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that among other things works to improve management of radioactive waste, the Ukrainian state agency responsible for the Chernobyl exclusion zone said Tuesday.

The Russian military seized the decommissioned plant at the beginning of the war. The exclusion zone is the contaminated area around the plant, site of the world's worst nuclear meltdown in 1986. Also Read | Russia-Ukraine War: Germany Refuses To Boycott Russian Energy Supplies.

The state agency said the laboratory, built at a cost of 6 million euros with support from the European Commission, opened in 2015. The laboratory contained “highly active samples and samples of radionuclides that are now in the hands of the enemy, which we hope will harm itself and not the civilized world,” the agency said in its statement. Also Read | Russia-Ukraine War: Russia Says Putting Peace Terms Up for Vote in Ukraine Will Harm Negotiations.

Radionuclides are unstable atoms of chemical elements that release radiation.. In another worrying development, Ukraine's nuclear regulatory agency said Monday that radiation monitors around the plant had stopped working.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)