Russian military forces have looted and destroyed a new laboratory at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that was used to monitor radioactive waste, the Ukrainian government said Wednesday. The site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster fell into Russian hands during the first week of invasion.

Following shelling near the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, fears grew that the safety standards inside the exclusion zone could be compromised.

The laboratory, built at a cost of 6 million euros with support from the European Commission, opened in 2015 after the world’s worst nuclear meltdown in 1986.

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The EU funded the reopening of the lab in a bid to improve radioactive waste management, a Ukrainian government agency reportedly said. 

The laboratory contained “highly active samples and samples of radionuclides (unstable atoms that can emit high levels of radiation) 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.

The destruction of the lab is among many other scare at the infamous site in northern Ukraine, near the border with Belarus. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s government warned that Russian artillery or arson were likely resulting in several fires close to the plant.

There were reports last week that Russian forces were planning a false flag “terrorist attack” on the captured Chernobyl nuclear facility. Ukrainian defense intelligence bureau alleged that the act was aimed pinning the blame on Kyiv.

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“According to the available information – Vladimir Putin ordered the preparation of a terrorist attack at the Chernobyl nuclear station. The creation of a technological catastrophe is planned … the responsibility for which the occupiers will try to translate to Ukraine,” the Ukraine defense ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate wrote in a Facebook post at the time.

“At the moment, the CAEC [Chernobyl] is completely disconnected from the monitoring systems of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” the post further said, adding, “The station has been disrupted. The resource of existing diesel generators is calculated for 48 hours of security systems to support.”