A post from Ukrainian I am in touch since the start of russian aggression, he is monitoring the damage to the science infrastructure, museums, national treasures, heritage sites etc.:
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Meet the UTR-2 radio telescope in Kharkiv region after the occupation.
UTR-2 is the world's largest radio telescope of decameter waves. It belongs to the Radio Astronomy Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The Ukrainian T-shaped radio telescope of the second modification UTR-2 has three groups of antennas of 900 meters each (North, West, South). The area of the entire complex is 150,000 square meters. One arm of the antennas is located in the South-North direction and has a length of 1,800 m. The other, accordingly, is directed to the West and has a length of 900 m.
Scientists at the Radio Astronomy Institute used UTR-2 to help NASA's Juno mission study Jupiter.
The Russians appeared near UTR-2 somewhere on February 26. And they finally occupied the territory by the end of May. They set up a barracks in the central building where the equipment was. The central building of the complex was damaged during the shelling, almost all of its equipment was destroyed.
The Russians stole all the computers that were there. In the same way, all the electronic equipment that was responsible for the operation of the radio telescope was spun up. In the basement, where there was also part of the equipment, there was a mountain of mattresses, dirty clothes, human shit and packages from dry food. The director of the Institute of Radio Astronomy said that the Russians had set up a shooting range in the Northern Collector. And now it is difficult to say whether the entire equipment that is in these collectors.
Most likely, the collectors with equipment were mined - the Ukrainian military found stretch marks there. It is also not clear in what condition the complex's antennas are - there are 2040 of them, and there may also be explosives in the grass between them.
There is no mention of any restoration work until the area is demined. The extent of damage and the cost of probable restoration work cannot be estimated at this time.
After all this, one thought does not give peace: Russia tells a lot that it is a space, fucking, state. That they conquer and explore the universe. They have some cool rockets and scientists with inventions there. And at the same time, they are destroying a unique space exploration tool.
Okay, it is clear that for the conditional Ivan from Syzran, the study of lightning on Saturn or the study of relic radiation is something very clever. And vodka and a can of sauerkraut are much closer. But can сommanders explain to their troops what kind of object this is?
After all, don't you want to show off such a trophy and keep it? Do not want. Today, I saw for myself that the Russians are some stubborn barbarians stuck in the Middle Ages. And if they get their hands on a technological device, they will drive nails into the wall with it.
And the secret of the mysterious Russian soul, which their literature writes about, is quite simple: come, kill everyone, loot everything valuable, shit from the door and smear the walls with shit. And there is no logic in this. They do it simply because they can.
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