President Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to rubbish President Donald Trump’s suggestion to take tension over nuclear plant possession off the table by simply making them American-owned, insisting the plants “belong to the people of Ukraine”.
The largest nuclear power station in Europe, Zaporizhzhia, is technically Ukrainian owned but has been occupied by Russian forces for over three years and its fate has emerged as a bone of contention in Ukraine War peace negotiations. This week, President Trump offered a novel approach to answering whether it should be Ukrainian or Russian, by offering to make it American instead, taking the problem off the table altogether.
Ukraine’s President Zelensky responded quickly, however, reverting to his total war goal of all United Nations-recognised Ukrainian territory being restored to Kyiv control, insisting there is no way the United States could take control of the valuable but potentially highly dangerous site.
In a response to a journalists’ question during a joint conference with Norway’s Prime Minister that at times appeared to verge on the frustrated or angry, President Zelensky hit back: “all nuclear power plants belong to the people of Ukraine. These are state-owned nuclear power plants, it is not in private property in Ukraine.
“The atomic energy in Ukraine belongs to Ukraine, and the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia region where there is the [Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant], it belongs to Ukraine.”
Referring to the leader call he had with President Trump earlier this week, President Zelensky cast doubt on the version of events published by the United States’ which stated “American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure”. Giving his view of the call, Zelensky said:
The problem raised by the Americans, I do not know whether they have raised it with the Russians.
Mr President Trump asked me ‘what do you think about this station’, I told him that ‘if it does not belong to Ukraine, it will not work for anybody, it is illegal and it is not capable of doing so’, and it is a state owned enterprise… the issue of property, we definitely did not discuss with Mr President Trump, and even more so we did not discuss the message you have said here.
I saw such messages in the press regarding the overall generation in Ukraine, no we will not discuss it.
Ukraine is “open to discussions” on future investment and modernisation of its nuclear power, Zelensky said, but again re-treaded his path on insisting foreign ownership could not be permitted.
Ukraine has 15 Soviet-era nuclear reactors. In the case of its largest plant at Zaporizhzhia, its six reactors are largely in a state of cold shutdown for safety. As previously reported on the nuclear ownership proposal to remove the issue from contention between Ukraine and Russia:
The proposal to take these plants into U.S. ownership is the latest by the Trump administration to offer Ukraine security guarantees through commerce, ensuring continued American interest in Ukraine’s wellbeing by creating a strong financial interest in its safety. Following the readout on Trump’s comments to Zelensky, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright assured the U.S. taking ownership of Ukraine’s nuclear fleet was doable, telling Fox News overnight that “There’s no problem, we can do it”.
He said: “If it was helpful to achieve that end, have the US run nuclear power plants in Ukraine… We have immense technical expertise in the United States to run those plants. I don’t think that requires boots on the ground.”
In fact, the United States already has direct experience in nuclear power in Ukraine, with nuclear power giant Westinghouse having supported the country’s power fleet since the Russian invasion in 2022, and has even started building new, American-designed reactors at Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant last year.
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