A nuclear safety expert has warned that a radiation monitoring lab in Chernobyl village has been raided, with burglars looting radioactive ingredients which could be mixed with explosives to create a 'dirty bomb' as Russian troops continue to advance the invasion.
Anatolii Nosovskyi, director of director of the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants (ISPNPP) in Kyiv, said he has lost contact with the lab so the 'fate of these sources is unknown to us'.
He told Science that if such a bomb were to be made, created with the radioactive isotopes and radioactive waste pieces said to be taken, a wide area risks being contaminated.
The Kremlin's forces occupied the Chernobyl station (pictured in 2017) in the first days of the invasion last month
Mr Nosovskyi added that Putin's forces left firefighters unable to put out blazes in the exclusion zone, risking a 'significant deterioration of the radiation situation in Ukraine and throughout Europe'.
He said remote measurements don't suggest that the concentrations of radioactive particle in the smoke pose a health hazard, but added that an automated monitoring system which went down with the power outage on March 9 is still offline.
It comes as Lyudmila Denisova, commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada for human rights said there are 'more than 10,000 hectares of forests are burning in the exclusion zone in the CAEC area due to combat action', worsened by windy and dry weather.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk also accused Russia of 'irresponsible' acts around the occupied power station that could send radiation across much of Europe and called on the UN Security Council to take 'immediate measures'.
A nuclear safety expert has warned that a radiation monitoring lab Chernobyl village has been raided. Pictured, a Soviet-era over-the-horizon radar system in Chernobyl, in 2018
She said Putin's military 'pose a very serious threat not only to Ukraine, but also to hundreds of millions of Europeans' in a Facebook post, accusing Russia of using 'old and unconditional ammunition', creating a risk of damaging the containment vessel constructed around the station's wrecked fourth reactor.
Using old and badly maintained weapons increases detonation risk 'even when loading and
