Trump wants control of Ukraine’s nuclear plants. The largest one is on the front line

Taking over the Zaporizhzhia power plant would involve quelling the fighting — and prying it away from Putin.

A member of the International Atomic Energy Agency walking near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in 2023. Picture: International Atomic Energy Agency / AFP.

The Trump administration’s latest idea to bring peace to Ukraine is for the US to take control of the country’s power plants, including its nuclear facilities, as an insurance against further aggression by Moscow toward Kyiv.

While President Trump hasn’t named the particular plants at issue, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after speaking with the US president Wednesday that the pair had only discussed the plant that is under Russian occupation.

He was referring to the Zaporizhzhia power station, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, which was seized by Russia in the first weeks of the conflict and has been the site of skirmishes and shelling throughout the war.

If the Americans want to take the plant from the Russians and invest in it and modernise it, then Ukraine is open to discussing it, the Ukrainian leader said. “But the issue of ownership, we definitely did not discuss with President Trump,” Zelensky said on Thursday.

Any US effort to take it over would involve quelling the fighting — and prying the plant away from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

What is the status of the plant?

Ukraine operates 15 nuclear reactors in four power plants across the country, according to the country’s Nuclear Energy Agency. Most of the facilities are operating normally, but Zaporizhzhia is all but moribund.

It supplied roughly 20 per cent of Ukraine’s electricity before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and took control of it. The plant’s six reactors are now offline, in a so-called cold shutdown.

Rescue workers and other emergency personnel take part in drills to prepare for an incident at Zaporizhzhia. Picture: Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP)

Perched along the Dnipro River, which serves as the front line in the area, the 6-gigawatt plant is visible from Ukrainian-held territory and remains encircled by Russian landmines. Moscow’s forces man its roof from machinegun nests and regularly fire rounds at incoming self-detonating drones. Artillery has regularly passed overhead during the war, and drones in the past struck one of its reactors.

Because of the fighting in the area and the Russian occupation of the plant, most of its 11,000 staff have fled.

After the call between Trump and Zelensky, Russian lawmakers said the plant belonged to Russia.

What are the prospects for a US company to restart the plant?

As long as active fighting continues in the area, the risk of restarting the plant would likely keep any private companies away. On Wednesday, Zelensky estimated that it would take at least two years to get the plant running again.

In addition, Putin has indicated that he intends to keep hold of the plant, one of the biggest trophies he has seized during the war.

Last year, Putin expressed an intention to get it running again. He plans to use the facility to power occupied parts of Ukraine and maybe to sell power back to Kyiv, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Restarting even one reactor in Zaporizhzhia would be a technical challenge for whichever country has control of the nuclear power plant.

Bringing a reactor back online would mean raising the core temperature by hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit, and would require an extensive, highly trained crew to check a labyrinth of pipes, pumps and valves for leaks. Experts question whether the inflow of water to the plant would be sufficient to cool an active reactor following the destruction of a nearby dam.

Supplies ranging from diesel for backup generators to spare parts for pumps and turbines would be required. The plant would have to establish several reliable sources of backup power, to sustain emergency operations if the reactor itself tripped offline.

Power lines to and from the plant would also need repair.

Is there a danger of a nuclear disaster?

Ukraine was the site of the largest nuclear disaster in history — the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, which unleashed plumes of radiation across Europe. The fighting around the Zaporizhzhia plant has raised the spectre of a similar disaster.

Nuclear experts say safeguards and technology in place today make a major meltdown far less likely than it was in 1986. Still, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has a team that monitors the site, has continually warned about the risks of military activity so close to the nuclear plant and the impact of the war on its staff.

International Atomic Energy Agency staff survey a building at the Zaporizhzhia plant damaged by shelling. Picture: Fredrik DAHL / International Atomic Energy Agency / AFP

Last month, the IAEA said that the facility had been relying on a single off-site power line after its only remaining backup line was lost. The situation highlighted “an extremely fragile nuclear safety situation during the military conflict,” the United Nations agency said.

Monitors have recently found accessing the plant increasingly difficult as the war has worn on. Until recently, the IAEA accessed the plant through Ukraine, which required crossing the front line. In December, a drone damaged an IAEA vehicle, according to the agency, and in February “intense fighting” in the area forced the IAEA to cancel a planned rotation of their staff stationed there.

This month, the IAEA team arrived at the plant through Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine for the first time, because of the continuing dangers of crossing the line of contact.

Both sides had considered the route the IAEA took to access the plant as a de facto recognition of sovereignty, and Russia celebrated the change, while Kyiv expressed outrage.

“Difficult conditions have in the past month complicated and delayed the latest rotation of experts, which was safely completed in recent days,” Rafael Grossi, the IAEA’s director general, said this month. “All the IAEA’s activities in Ukraine are being conducted in line with relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly.”

The Wall Street Journal