Ukrainian central and local government officials are now visiting Japan to learn Japanese expertise on how to process rubble. They have inspected a temporary waste storage site near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The tour was organized by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA.

Eight Ukrainian officials, including those from the central government and the southern region of Kherson, visited the site within a "difficult-to-return" zone in Okuma Town on Friday.

The facility stores waste that was left after houses and other buildings had been demolished following the 2011 disaster at the nuclear power plant. The waste has been sorted into material types, such as concrete and metals.

The Ukrainian officials observed how waste is kept, as well as the process in which wooden materials are broken into small pieces with machines and brought to the storage site.

A Ukrainian government official said a large amount of rubble from destroyed buildings and other waste has been kept at temporary storage sites since the start of the Russian invasion. But most of the debris has reportedly not been processed.

An official involved in the country's reconstruction work said their experiences in Japan are valuable as Ukraine has little knowhow on how to process such waste.

The Japanese government plans to hold a Japan-Ukraine economic recovery conference on Feb. 19 in Tokyo.