The director of the agency, Evgen Kramarenko, provided the laboratory photos to VOA, saying he took them on an April 5 visit, five days after Russian troops withdrew from Chernobyl. They had occupied the city and the nuclear power plant on February 24 at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“We have a laboratory that had a big quantity of radioactive instruments that are used to calibrate our radiation dosimeters,” Kramarenko told VOA. A dosimeter is a safety device, typically worn by individuals as a badge, that measures exposure to ionizing radiation, including nuclear radiation.

The agency’s dosimeters are calibrated using small metallic containers of radioactive material made by Ukrainian state enterprise USIE Izotop, which displays a photo of them on its website.

“Most of those calibration instruments were stolen. They look like coins. If the Russian soldiers carry them around, it’s very dangerous for them,” Kramarenko said.