Trump suggests U.S. takeover of Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine-Russia ceasefire talks

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later clarified in a media briefing that the conversation focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in southern Ukraine and not the country’s other three nuclear plants. ZNPP, which is on the front lines of the military conflict, is Europe’s largest nuclear plant, with six 950-MWe units.

ZPNN has been under Russian control since March 2022. Though it is still connected to Ukraine’s energy grid, it stopped producing electricity shortly after the Russian invasion and seizure of the plant. Currently, all six units are in cold shutdown.

Zelensky said the country might consider a deal for the U.S. to claim ZNPP from Russian control and then invest in plant upgrades, the AP reported. But he said all of Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear facilities “belong to the people,” and that he is not discussing the issue of ownership with Trump.

Restoration: The U.S. could theoretically take on ZNPP’s restoration, which is expected to take years, according to RBC-Ukraine.

“This is important for us. I believe that the plant will not operate while under occupation. I also believe that the plant can be restored—this is a fact. I have openly stated that it would take about two years on average, maybe two and a half. That is the estimate provided by nuclear specialists," Zelensky told journalists.

ZNPP has endured numerous missile and drone attacks and multiple loss-of-power events during the past three years of conflict. Those have been cataloged by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has had rotating teams stationed at the plant since 2022.

The 2023 collapse of a Soviet-era dam near the plant, which Ukraine said Russian forces blew up, further jeopardized ZNPP’s cooling systems. The plant now gets cooling water from a nearby pond, but water levels there are dropping.

In his latest update on the situation in Ukraine, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said he welcomed “developments of restraint around energy infrastructure” that contribute to safety at ZNPP in recent weeks.”

“Without interruption, the IAEA has been present at this major nuclear plant for two and a half years now, doing everything possible to help prevent a potentially disastrous nuclear accident. We all wish for this devastating war to end as soon as possible,” Grossi said in the March 21 update.

The IAEA team on site at ZNPP has been monitoring maintenance activities, which are “of critical importance for overall nuclear safety and security but challenging to sustain during the military conflict,” Grossi said. Also, IAEA inspectors have consistently faced restricted access to areas of the plant, so some conditions are unknown.

A bargaining chip? The U.S. reportedly has a plan that would force Russia to withdraw troops from ZNPP and place it under American control, Reuters reported in a March 20 article.

Reuters cited two Ukrainian industry sources who said the proposal could be the U.S. testing ideas as Trump seeks to arrange a lasting peace deal that would rapidly end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

A former senior Ukrainian official said, “Anything is possible with the Americans, but this is something quite unusual.”

ZNPP is critical asset to Ukraine. Before the war, the plant generated about 20 percent of the country’s electricity and helped stabilize the region’s energy market.

Olha Shyshkyna, a resident of the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is not far from the plant and remains under Ukrainian control, believes the return of the plant one day looks likely as it has had no actual use for the Russian side, according to Reuters. Several attempts by Russia to connect ZNPP to its own grid have failed.

“For Russia, our nuclear station is like a suitcase without a handle. After all, it is not operational, and now it’s just a plaything. To us, it’s critically important,” she told Reuters.

Other ZNPP news: In article published on March 22, the Russian-financed media outlet RT cited a “group of international journalists” who believe Ukraine is behind repeated attacks at the Zaporizhzhia facility.

“According to Western media, the Russians are attacking the plant. But when I visited, I saw the Russian security forces positioned to keep the plant safe,” said Indian journalist Manish Kumar Jha, who also claimed to see a fragment of a U.S.-supplied missile near the plant, according to RT. “The reality is very different from the story the Western media tells.”

According to its own website, RT describes itself as an autonomous non-profit organization, though it is owned by RIA Novosti, a Russian Federation-owned and funded news agency headquartered in Moscow.

The RT article reported that journalists from India, Serbia, Slovenia, and other nations toured ZNPP and then voiced concerns about the how the situation on the ground is being portrayed by the IAEA and Western news outlets.

Quotable: “We should never trust any Western sources . . . . Ukrainians are playing with nuclear fire,” said Serbian journalist Miodrag Zarkovic, who criticized the IAEA’s insistence on neutrality in the ongoing conflict.

RT quoted Slovenian journalist and blogger Mohar Borut Iztok, who criticized the IAEA and claimed to see “NATO-supplied 155-millimeter shells with clear markings” among the debris from a recent attack.

“I know what the problem is. They have an agenda, a narrative to follow, so they try to stay neutral,” Iztok added.