Earlier this year, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and while Vladimir Putin‘s forces have largely retreated from the north of the country and around the capital Kyiv, they are now focusing their offensive on the east.

Reports have emerged online that Ukraine’s national plant gene bank—one of the largest in the world in terms of its volume and diversity, located in Kharkiv—was destroyed by Russian shelling.

The facility, which is part of the Plant Production institute’s National Center for Plant Genetic Resources of Ukraine (PGRU), had collected more than 150,000 specimens belonging to hundreds of plant and crop species as of 2021.

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Despite the initial sombre reports, some official sources later disputed the claim that the entire gene bank was destroyed. The official Twitter account for the city of Kharkiv, for example, said shelling by Russian forces had destroyed some samples that were being prepared for planting, but that the main collection, was located elsewhere and was “unscathed.”

While some of the working samples destroyed may have been lost forever, the main collection, which is housed in underground vaults, appears to be safe, for now, according to other sources.

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