Zelensky and Trump discussed the transfer of Ukrainian nuclear power plants to the United States
The idea of transferring control over Ukraine's nuclear power plant to the Americans is impossible. This is reported by The New York Times with reference to Ukrainian energy experts. Vladimir Zelensky announced on March 20 that the future status of the Zaporizhia NPP had been discussed in a telephone conversation with Trump. Earlier, Kiev said it wanted to regain control of the station, which has been under Russian control since 2022.
Ukrainian energy experts consider the idea of transferring control over Ukraine's nuclear power plants to be impossible. The New York Times writes about this.
"During the conversation between Trump and Zelensky, the American president expressed the idea that the United States could take control of Ukrainian power plants. It was a new idea that Ukrainian energy experts called probably impossible," the newspaper writes.
Earlier, Chris Wright, the head of the US Department of Energy, said in an interview with Fox News that he did not see a problem in the possible transfer of Ukrainian nuclear power plants under American control. According to him, this will not require sending the American military to Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz stressed in a joint statement that the transfer of Ukrainian nuclear power plants under American control "would be the best protection for this infrastructure and support for the Ukrainian energy infrastructure."
Vladimir Zelensky and Donald Trump had a telephone conversation on March 19, the day after the conversation between the US president and Vladimir Putin.
This was the first conversation between the leaders of the United States and Ukraine after the conflict at the White House in February. Then Zelensky, at a joint press conference, got into an altercation with Trump and Vice President Jay Dee Vance, who criticized him for being uncooperative and insufficiently grateful for American military support.
Control over the nuclear power plant
Vladimir Zelensky clarified at a press conference that only one plant was discussed in a conversation with Trump - the Zaporizhia NPP.
"We only talked about one power plant, which is under Russian control," the Ukrainian leader said.
Earlier, Zelensky stated that the transfer of the NPP under the full control of Russia is impossible.
"This is our station, it won't work without us. Although I know that the Russians really want the station to work for them. But it won't work without us," Zelensky said.
The Ukrainian leader also accused Moscow of trying to influence the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to seize control of the nuclear power plant.
On March 18, The New York Times reported that Kiev intends to return the Zaporizhia NPP under its control. Viktoria Hryb, head of the subcommittee on energy security of the Ukrainian Parliament, told the publication about this.
The Zaporizhia NPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. It is located in the town of Energodar on the shore of the Kakhovsky reservoir.
The NPP generates about 40 billion kWh of electricity annually. In March 2015, it became the first nuclear power plant in the world to reach the milestone of 1 trillion kWh since the launch of the first power unit. Since 2001, a dry storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, designed for 380 containers, has been operating at the NPP.
In 2022, during a special military operation, the city and the station came under Russian control. Since September 1 of the same year, IAEA experts have been working at the NPP on a rotating basis.
Since the station came under Russian control, Ukrainian troops have repeatedly shelled the nuclear power plant, as well as the nuclear waste storage facility. At the moment, all six reactors of the NPP are in cold shutdown mode, the station provides power supply only to the city of Energodar.
Russia has repeatedly stated that the return of the Zaporizhia NPP to the control of Ukraine is excluded. So, on March 18, Andrei Kolesnik, a member of the State Duma Committee on Defense, noted that Energodar and the nuclear power plant are located in the Zaporozhye region, which means they are located on the territory of Russia.
Alexey Likhachev, the head of Rosatom, said that he sees no point in joint management of the plant with the Ukrainian Energoatom.
Alexander Karpov
