Ukraine's SBU, Azov battalion militants plotting provocation with possible radioactive contamination of area near Kharkiv - Russian Defense Ministry

MOSCOW. March 7 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) jointly with militants of the Azov battalion are preparing a provocation with possible radioactive contamination of the area near the city of Kharkiv, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.

"The nationalists have mined a reactor at an experimental nuclear facility located at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology," the statement said.

"The SBU and militants of the Azov battalion are planning to explode the reactor and accuse the Russian Armed Forces of allegedly carrying out a missile strike on the experimental nuclear facility," it said.

"On March 6, foreign journalists arrived in Kharkiv to record the consequences of the provocation with the subsequent accusation of the Russian Federation of causing an environmental disaster," the Defense Ministry said.