Ukraine dismayed by Trump’s proposal to take control of its nuclear plants

Donald Trump told Volodymyr Zelenskiy by phone on Wednesday that the best way to secure defense measures for Ukraine’s energy sector was to transfer its nuclear power plants to U.S. companies. This is what the U.S. president proposed to his Ukrainian counterpart, according to a White House press spokesperson, corroborating a statement from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

“[Trump] said that 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 and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure,” read the statement.

The Ukrainian media received the news with disbelief. After the minerals deal — described as “blackmail” by TSN, Ukraine’s main private television news channel — Trump’s latest proposal appears to take advantage of Ukraine’s weakness. Under the yet-to-be-signed agreement, Ukraine would cede 50% of the revenue from its strategic mineral deposits, oil, and natural gas to a U.S.-led consortium. This pact had been a key demand from Trump as a precondition for continuing negotiations on future U.S. defense support for Kyiv.

The fear in Ukraine is that the U.S. president will have another demand: to take over control of its four nuclear plants. These are the Khmelnytskyi plant, which recently acquired new reactors from the U.S. company Westinghouse; the Rivne nuclear plant, also known as South Ukraine; and the most well-known of all, the Zaporizhia nuclear plant — the largest in Europe, currently under Russian occupation. On Wednesday night, Zelenskiy stated that Trump had only mentioned the possibility of U.S. investment in Zaporizhia if it were liberated.

The situation is reminiscent of the confusion that followed the March 11 meeting between the Zelenskiy and Trump delegations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Andrii Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, denied that they had discussed which occupied territories would be ceded to Russia. But Waltz said in a television interview that they had, of course, discussed territorial concessions, and that he had even laid out a map of Ukraine on the table to illustrate how the regions could be divided. The U.S. mission in Jeddah also showed particular interest in the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

Zelenskiy, who has opted for a strategy of courting Trump, described his call with the U.S. president as “positive, very substantive, and frank,” and thanked him several times for his support. During an official visit to Norway on Thursday, the Ukrainian president reaffirmed that its nuclear power plants are state-owned and that the option for the U.S. would be to invest in Zaporizhia, modernizing and upgrading the facility once Russia no longer occupies it. The issue is expected to be revisited at the meeting scheduled for next Monday in Saudi Arabia between the Ukrainian and U.S. delegations.

“Like a vulture”

Not everyone has reacted so tactfully. “Trump is like a vulture flying over a wounded Ukraine,” Maksim Borodin, a former MP from Mariupol and prominent political activist, posted on social media. “Translation: the U.S. wants to own Zaporihzhya nuclear power plant, otherwise it might fall into Russian hands,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, Ukraine’s former economy minister, added in a message on X. Euromaidan Press, a pro-European outlet, called it another “colonial-style” imposition, like the minerals deal.

“Perhaps this is what he meant when he said he would talk to Vladimir Putin about sharing Ukraine’s assets,” one of the top commanders on the Zaporizhia front, speaking on condition of anonymity, told EL PAÍS. His remarks refer to Trump’s statements last Monday, a day before his phone call with Putin, in which he expressed interest in discussing “dividing up certain assets” in Ukraine, specifically mentioning the occupied territories and the Zaporizhia nuclear plant.

“We’ve been fighting for three years to recover this plant, and now the person who was supposed to be our ally says that only if it’s theirs can it be protected from the Russians. I don’t even know what to say,” added the senior military official.

“Ukraine has grown used to this news, but there’s always a sense of unease because Trump is unpredictable,” Oleskii Melnyk, co-director of the Razumkov Center for Political and Security Studies, told EL PAÍS.

Melnyk believes that the best course of action for the Ukrainian government “is to support any American initiative and not anger Trump, because the consequences have proven to be very negative.” This academic is referring to the 10-day suspension of U.S. military intelligence in Ukraine in March, which was a serious setback for the country’s defenses amid the ongoing invasion.

Zelenskiy has quickly adapted to this strategy, says Melnyk, “since he understood that arguing is useless, during his fight in the Oval Office [the stormy meeting with Trump on February 28 at the White House].” “In some way, we have to learn from what our enemy, Putin, does with Trump — he tells him yes but stalls in the meantime and gets what he wants.”

Melnyk argues that Trump’s proposals are not only unsound but also unworkable. The Razumkov Center, home to some of Ukraine’s top energy policy analysts, has concluded that a U.S. company would be unable to operate the Zaporizhia plant because it uses Soviet-era technology and Ukrainian domestic adaptations.

Mykhailo Gonchar, director of the Strategy XXI analysis group — one of Ukraine’s leading institutions for energy sector studies — confirms that Ukrainian power plants cannot be run by U.S. technicians. However, U.S. ownership of the company could be a possibility. “In that case, according to international protocols, they should guarantee that U.S. military personnel operate defense systems, from anti-aircraft missiles to fighter jets,” said Gonchar.

“The U.S. wants to benefit from Ukraine and our weakness,” Gonchar added. He hopes the Ukrainian government will reject the proposal because, despite promises of military aid, the country’s energy security is at stake.

“The Americans haven’t talked about minerals for days. Perhaps the deal is dead,” said Melnik. “And perhaps they’ll forget about nuclear power plants and pull out another proposal in a week.” His conclusion is that “unfortunately, there is growing evidence that the U.S. government isn’t pursuing any strategy, only impulses aimed at achieving short-term results.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition