Staff at Ukraine's Institute of Physics and Technology in Kharkiv pick up the pieces after Russian missile strikes

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. Key points: Russian missiles have badly damaged a US-funded nuclear research lab in north-eastern Ukraine Staff say the site was hit some 100 times during the first months of the war, and attacks remain a constant threat Before the Russian invasion the institute was a jewel in the crown of Ukraine's highly developed nuclear research sector Staff at the US-funded atomic research lab in north-eastern Ukraine spend their days patching up the facility, which has been badly damaged by repeated Russian strikes. The US government says the Kharkiv nuclear facility, built in collaboration with the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, is the first of its kind in the world, "designed to produce medical isotopes, train nuclear professionals, support the Ukrainian nuclear industry and provide experimental capabilities for performing reactor physics, materials, and basic science research". Mark Hibbs, a senior fellow in the nuclear policy program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the lab was "a unique facility" whose damage in the war is a loss to world science. The Kharkiv reactor was put into a "deep subcritical state" — essentially sent into hibernation — on the first day of the war, and it contains far less nuclear fuel than a power plant anyway.