7 hours ago 1

Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant in focus of Ukraine peace talks. What's at stake?

The White House on March 19 proposed Ukraine pass its nuclear facilities to the U.S. as part of the ongoing ceasefire talks.

"The United States could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise. American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing on March 19.

The control of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), the largest one in Europe, has been actively discussed between Kyiv and Washington over the past week.

President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed on March 14 that the fate of the plant and the adjacent Russian-occupied territories were discussed with the U.S. during bilateral talks in Saudi Arabia a week prior.

Zelensky said that the return of the plant without Ukrainian control over the city in which the plant is located — Enerhodar — isn't possible.

"You can't just say: here's the plant, and the city (of Enerhodar) is separate," Zelensky said.

Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, is located on the Russian-occupied east bank of the Dnipro River, with Ukraine having no access to the adjacent territory.

Experts told the Kyiv Independent that regaining control over the plant is a difficult goal for Ukraine, and a potential prolonged military presence there without driving the Russians out of the surrounding territories is an unlikely option.

"This is a political, military, perhaps diplomatic, but definitely not an energy question," Oleksandr Kharchenko, managing director at the Energy Industry Research Center, told the Kyiv Independent.

"(But) I sincerely believe that the creation of a joint venture, provided that the United States brings additional finances, corporate governance rules, access to investments and capacity expansion to Ukrainian Energoatom, would definitely, in my opinion, be in Ukraine's favor," he added.

Russia has, so far, ignored the calls to relinquish control of the plant.

Strategic stronghold

Located on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is a strategically important facility that Russia turned into a military base, Ukrainian officials have said.

According to Enerhodar's exiled mayor, Dmytro Orlov, around 1,000 Russian soldiers have been deployed on the plant's territory as of late summer 2024.

Russian troops use the plant as a training ground and a launchpad for drone attacks targeting Ukraine-controlled territories, the military said. The city of Nikopol in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, which sits across the river, regularly suffers from Russian attacks.

"Removing Russian forces from the area would most likely require significant military power."

The chances that Russia will voluntarily leave the plant remain "slim given its value," said Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst at the Finland-based Black Bird Group.

"A withdrawal for whatever reason would be seen as a significant loss for Russia, and removing Russian forces from the area would most likely require significant military power," he told the Kyiv Independent.

A fire at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Aug. 11, 2024.

"It plays an important role in the future in supplying electricity to the occupied territories, which Russia also has no intention of giving back to their rightful owner."

Kyiv pins hope to return the nuclear plant through diplomatic means after military attempts to regain control failed to succeed.

Military Intelligence Chief Kyrylo Budanov and Ukrainian soldiers said the first attempt to create a bridgehead for the liberation of the occupied plant was made in August 2022. The two attempts of landing followed later the same year.

Kastehelmi said that a potential large-scale offensive by Ukraine to retake the plant looks "risky and unrealistic" at this time.

"In theory, there could be a diplomatic breakthrough which would then give the plant back to Ukrainian control, but currently, it's difficult to see where Ukraine could gain such political leverage," the expert said.

Europe's largest power plant under threat

The Zaporizhzhia plant accounted for 20% of the country's electricity supplies and almost half of nuclear power generation before the full-scale war.

Now, all of its siх reactors are in a cold shutdown. The plant does not generate power and relies on two power lines connected to Ukrainian-controlled territories for off-site electricity, compared to the 10 it had before the war. Both have suffered repeated disconnections due to Russian attacks.

Energoatom, Ukraine's state-owned nuclear power plant operator, said that the plant has experienced eight blackouts and one partial shutdown since the beginning of the all-out war.

A day after the U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh in late February, Alexey Likhachev, the head of Russia's state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom, said that Russia is planning to relaunch the plant.

Energoatom Head Petro Kotin said that under current circumstances, it's impossible.

"This is our plant, it will not work without us."

The plant was dependent on the Kakhovka Reservoir for water used to cool the reactors. The reservoir dried out following the Russian destruction of the Kakhovka Dam. Russia also lacks power lines and qualified personnel, and the nuclear fuel at the plant is no longer usable, Kotin said.

"This is our plant, it will not work without us," Zelensky said on March 18. "According to (Ukraine's) intelligence, the Russians really want it to work without us. They are trying to drag the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into this."

Inspectors from the IAEA, stationed at the Russian-occupied facility since the fall of 2022 to monitor risks and ensure the safety of operations, are meant to rotate every 80 days.

In early March, the IAEA conducted its first rotation through the Russian-occupied territories, which was met with outrage and concern by Kyiv. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry blamed the situation on Russian blackmail, saying that Moscow's forces had blocked staff rotations through Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Rafael Mariano Grossi

Greenpeace Ukraine saw this move as Russia's tactic to involve the IAEA in a potential relaunch of the plant's nuclear reactors. But IAEA Chief Rafael Grossi called the recent rotation an "extraordinary exception," claiming that it was impossible to conduct it in a secure manner.

Kharchenko believes that if the plant remains under Russian control in case of a ceasefire, Moscow will sooner or later be able to restart its work, albeit with difficulties.

“If they get enough time and do not face any opposition from Ukraine, they will be able to do it (relaunch the plant) in some foreseeable period. It is not easy and it won't be soon,” he said.

Fabian Hoffmann, a defense expert and doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, said that if Ukraine could gain access to the plant and push Russian forces back enough to restart its work, it would give "a significant boost" to Ukrainian energy production.

"Essentially, that's another piece of energy infrastructure that Russia cannot target the same way that Russia throughout the war has not been targeting other Ukrainian nuclear infrastructure, simply because it's a big no," he told the Kyiv Independent.

"I think the Russians will try to maintain control over it just because it's politically useful for them. And it would be economically enormously useful for Ukraine to get it back. And that's reason enough for the Russians to try to hold it."

Closed city, civilian hostages

Meanwhile, as the talks about the plant's future gain traction in Kyiv and Washington, the fate of the city remains unclear.

Russia brought Rosatom employees to Enerhodar to take control of the plant, seeking to force locals to collaborate.

Truth Hounds, a Ukrainian non-profit organization that documents and investigates war crimes, reported, citing witnesses, that with the knowledge of Rosatom, Russian troops have been abducting and torturing Ukrainian employees.

Before the full-scale war, 11,000 people worked at the plant, of whom 5,000 remain under occupation to this day. Oleksandr Pavlichenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, said around 2,000 refused to sign a contract with Rosatom.

The plant's employees are not allowed to leave the city and went through torture chambers set up by Russia in the city, he told the Kyiv Independent. Pavlichenko calls the resistance that Russian troops faced during attempts to occupy the city may be the reason for "a very systematic terror against the entire population of Enerhodar."

According to Pavlichenko, 21 employees of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are incarcerated as of March 18.

In October 2022, the Kyiv Independent published a detailed report about the systematic torture in Enerhodar. Residents of the Russian-occupied city and those who were able to escape have detailed the abductions and torture practices that local citizens had faced.

"Those who show any disagreement are persecuted," Pavlichenko said.

"Now there is total control there. It's a so-called concentration camp."