The four nuclear centrals that Ukraine has took prominence this week in contacts between Washington and kyiv to move towards the end of the war, after the White House explained that the president, the possibility of taking the property of those plants as a measure to guarantee their protection of the Russian threat is raised.
Although Washington did not specify what centrals it was, the use of plural suggests that the US president referred to the four nuclear plants that Ukraine has in his territory.
The Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, clarified that both leaders had spoken only about the possibility of the US to be responsible, with investments, technology and specialized personnel, to re -make the largest Ukrainian central, located in the southeast region of Zaporiyia and occupied by Russia at the beginning of the war, if kyiv recovers in the negotiations the control over that infrastructure.
Opening to the option of offering economic advantages to the US of the future exploitation of the central, which is the largest in Europe and a key pillar of the Ukrainian energy system, Zelenski seeks to maximize the chances of recovering both the infrastructure and as much as possible of the adjacent territory, for which he will need the pressure that Trump can exert over Putin when negotiating.
In this sense, Zelenski has declared that recovering the plant would not be enough to guarantee its correct functioning and its profitability, which would specify, he said, of the water supply and the appropriate associated infrastructure.
The Ukrainian president has also ruled out negotiating the transfer of ownership of any of his atomic plants to the US, as Trump states according to the White House.
A high risk factor
End of six reactors and a total power of 6000 MW, the Zaporiyia center was before being disconnected by the Russians the main electricity supplier in Ukraine with a generation of between 40,000 and 42,000 million kWh of electricity, which represented a fifth of the country’s annual production and half of all the production of the four Ukrainian nuclear power plants.
The Russian occupation of the Central put it more than three years ago in the vicinity of the combat zone. Both sides have accused each other of endangering it by attacking it, flying drones above the infrastructure or storing, according to the Ukrainian part about the use that Russia makes of the infrastructure, military equipment inside.
One of the most dangerous moments for the central occurred in June 2023 with the blasting of the Kajovka dam, which was under Russian control and fed with water the Zaporiyia central.
Three other centrals in operation
In addition to Zaporiyia, Ukraine has three other nuclear centrals located in the northwest, the west and south of the country that remain under kyiv government control and have avoided the collapse of the Ukrainian electrical system in the face of repeated Russian attacks against their non -nuclear electric power plants.
Although Russia has not attacked these centrals so far, drones attacks against transformers located in their vicinity that connect nuclear plants with the rest of the system are a matter of concern among experts, both because of the possibility of impacts in the same plants as well as the risk that they stop working properly due to damage to associated infrastructure.
An investment in the US
While the proposal on Trump’s Ukrainian nuclear plants is specified, Ukraine already works with the American nuclear energy company Westinghouse in the construction of two other reactors of the Jmelnitski nuclear power plant, in the west of the country.
Westinghouse already supplies fuel to the plant, for whose expansion reactors of Bulgaria will be acquired.
According to the Ukrainian atomic energy company, Energoatom, all Ukrainian plants under kyiv control have used US nuclear fuel, leaving the dependence on this chapter in Russia.
Ukraine hopes that this change will also extend to the Zaporiyia Central after negotiations, in which he aspires to recover the largest nuclear power plant in Europe without later yielding its property to the United States.
