Ever since March 2022, Russia has occupied Europe’s biggest nuclear plant at Enerhodar, on the banks of the Dnipro river. But the six nuclear reactors of the Zaporizhzhia plant are not producing electricity – they have all been in cold shutdown mode for more than three years – and external power supplied by Ukraine is keeping the plant going to prevent a meltdown.
To get it going again it needs substantial investment, partly to rebuild the destroyed Kakhovka hydro-electric dam that was used to provide cooling water for the plant.
Ukraine believes the area should also become demilitarised and turned into a free economic zone.
The US proposal, according to Zelensky, is for the US to manage the plant as a joint enterprise with Russia and Ukraine. Kyiv has said that is unrealistic and instead the US and Ukraine could jointly manage it 50-50, with the US deciding where half of the power goes – by implication to Russia.
Ukraine’s problem is that Russia will not let it go and the head of Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency Alexei Likachev has stressed that only one entity – Russia – can run it and ensure its safety.
He has held out the possibility that Ukraine could use electricity generated by the plant in the context of international co-operation.
Compromise on this issue may not be insurmountable, but it would require a level of trust between two neighbouring states when none exists.
