Amid recent ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine, President Donald Trump suggested the U.S. should take control of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants for long-term security, the Associated Press reported.

“American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure,” Trump suggested, according to a later statement.

Melbye

During an interview for Kitco News at the 2025 Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Convention, held in Toronto in early March, the chief executive of British Columbia–based Uranium Royalty Corp. noted, “I’ve never seen a better narrative around nuclear power [and] uranium.”

CEO Scott Melbye, who is also executive vice president of Texas-based Uranium Energy Corp. and has 41 years of experience in the uranium sector, added that nuclear energy has gone from stagnation or decline to a point where it may double by 2040.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service has finally gained full control over a blaze that started February 14 after a drone struck the protective dome over the destroyed reactor from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accident.

Uranium futures closed out February at about $65.55 per pound, according to online analysist firm Trading Economics. Futures prices have been below $66 per pound since mid-February.

Social media this past weekend streamed with reactionary posts following a drone strike last Friday at the site of the destroyed reactor from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The drone—armed with a warhead—ripped a hole in the New Safe Confinement (NSC), a large structure built to prevent any radioactive release from the damaged reactor unit 4 and to protect it from any external hazard. The drone strike caused a fire that was still smoldering in places as of Monday morning, and left a hole larger than 500 square feet. Efforts continue to mitigate the consequences of the fire and extinguish isolated smouldering areas of the NSC's insulation material.

Due to damage to the external and internal cladding of the NSC's arch and main crane system equipment, the safety boundaries and operational conditions of the NSC complex have been compromised, according to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Facebook page.

Uranium futures took a sharp plunge below $69 per pound in late January, to a low of about $67 on January 27, before climbing back to $71.35 on January 31, according to Trading Economics. The New York City–based analyst firm noted that this was the market’s first drop below $69 in 16 months and that the price fluctuation happened as “markets recalibrated demand expectations against a backdrop of ample supply.”

A team of innovative companies has plans to bring floating nuclear power plants to U.S. ports.

Core Power, a maritime and nuclear technology company, announced in January a new partnership in with naval architecture company Glosten. The pair is working on a design for a floating nuclear power plant (FNPP) that could generate up to 175 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity annually and provide clean power to ships, equipment, and port vehicles, Offshore Energy reported.

A drone targeted and damaged an official vehicle of the International Atomic Energy Agency on December 10 as it traveled toward the front line in eastern Ukraine during a rotation of IAEA teams at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP). In a video message, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi condemned the strike as an “unacceptable” attack on IAEA staff working to prevent a nuclear accident during a military conflict.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that Ukraine’s operating nuclear power plants reduced electricity production yesterday morning as a precautionary measure following widespread military activities across the country that reportedly targeted its energy infrastructure.

Uranium prices have fallen to their lowest level in more than a month, to just under $79 per pound, on Friday, November 1, according to analyst website Trading Economics. The lower prices, according to the site, are related to recent evidence of increased supply. This contrasts with the longer-term expectations of bullish demand and higher prices.

Uranium prices reached $81.9 per pound on October 1, the highest level in more than a month, according to online information source Trading Economics. The company reported that the last time prices were this high was on August 23, when they passed $82 per pound. Since the beginning of 2024, uranium prices have seen a decrease in price of about $9.10 per pound, or about 10 percent. Those statistics are based on trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market.

Kasparov

More than 80 percent of the territory that has been surveyed around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant “can be returned to agricultural production,” said Valery Kashparov, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Agricultural Radiology (UIAR) of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine.

Kashparov’s team of researchers reported in a recent article in New Scientist the results of its radiation surveys of areas around the site of the 1986 nuclear power plant accident. The group concluded that radiation measurements on much of the land are now below levels regarded as unsafe by Ukrainian regulators.

Decades of research: Kashparov, who has been with the UIAR since 1998, has spent the past 37 years conducting research related to Chernobyl, focusing on the physical-chemical and nuclear-physical properties of radioactive fallout in the area.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts announced criminal charges this week against two men for allegedly smuggling and conspiring to violate export controls relating to the sale of laser equipment to the Russian nuclear industry.

The military conflict with Russia that began in February 2022 has left Ukraine with “dangerous instability” of its national grid, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

Following a meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on September 3, Grossi promised to take a more proactive stance in protecting the country’s energy infrastructure—especially where nuclear safety is vulnerable. During recent months there have been numerous missile and drone attacks, with some directly causing the disconnection of several nuclear power plants.

Thick, black smoke pouring from one of the cooling towers at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant over the weekend raised alarm about safety at the facility as the military conflict with Russia continues.

On-site staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency witnessed the smoke and reported hearing multiple explosions at Zaporizhzhia, which is the largest nuclear plant in Europe and one of the largest worldwide.

The water level in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant cooling pond continues to decrease, creating a serious safety threat.

“If this trend continues, ZNPP staff confirmed that it will soon become challenging to pump water from the pond. Maintaining the level of the pond is made more difficult by the hot summer weather,” said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an update issued August 2.

Security watchdogs with the International Atomic Energy Association are reporting continuing issues at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant due to the military invasion from Russia.

IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said in his weekly briefing on Ukraine that Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant staff experienced another power outage in the nearby city of Enerhodar—where most of the workers live—and a shortage of tap water that has also affected the plant.

Turkey may be closer to moving ahead in a partnership with Russia for its second nuclear plant, Sinop, a proposed four-reactor facility on the Black Sea coast.

While commissioning began earlier this year at Turkey’s first nuclear plant, new reports say the project is delayed by sanctions against Russia due to its military invasion of Ukraine.

An external radiation monitoring station was taken out by shelling and fire near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine the last week of June.

This brings the total to four of the plant’s 14 radiation monitoring sites that are out of commission, further reducing the effectiveness of its off-site capability to detect and measure any radioactive release during an emergency, said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.