U.S. President Donald Trump has raised eyebrows with his suggestion that American interests could somehow take control of Ukraine’s largest nuclear power station, which has been occupied by Russian forces for the past three years.

How this would work and the likelihood of wresting the Zaporizhzhia plant from Russia’s hands are among the many questions raised by Trump’s proposal, which he apparently floated during a mid-week phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

Trump said “American ownership” of all of Ukraine’s nuclear plants “would be the best protection for that infrastructure,” according to the White House. Kyiv still controls the three other plants. 

Zelenskyy later told reporters they had only discussed the Zaporizhzhia plant — and the possibility of U.S. assistance in restoring it — during the call: “The president asked me if there was an understanding that America could restore it, and I told him yes, if we could modernize it, invest money.” 

The scenario of the U.S. running a foreign nuclear plant, in disputed territory no less, appears to be without precedent, according to Melinda Haring, a Ukraine expert and non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. 

“It’s just weird, to be honest,” she told Bloomberg.

The vast nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, has been occupied by Russia since the early days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and is beset with problems. Its six reactors are in cold shutdown, the facility has lost its main supply of cooling water and no one knows the state of its equipment.

It appears that any efforts to revive the plant would take years — two and a half, Zelenskyy has said — on top of overcoming the hurdles in gaining custody of the facility itself.

Despite making attempts, Moscow’s forces have not been able to connect the facility to Russia’s grid and it produces no energy.

Pressure on Russia

Two unnamed Ukrainian industry sources told Reuters that Trump’s proposal could be an example of the U.S. testing out various ideas to see what works, as Trump seeks to hammer out a deal to rapidly end the war.

One of the sources said the idea also puts pressure on Russia by proposing an arrangement in which it would have to hand over the plant. The Americans were inflaming the situation by using the word “ownership,” the source said.  

Others say a U.S. presence could deter Russia from sabotaging or otherwise attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. 

“Russia cannot play these games,” with the U.S., Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former Ukrainian economy minister, told BBC News.

“Russia respects U.S. power more than Ukraine’s.”

One former senior Ukrainian official said “anything is possible with the Americans,” but conceded that the proposal was “quite unusual.”

“The Americans would own it — and on what grounds? It belongs to Ukraine… Will they buy it? Will they take it as a concession? Many questions.”

That’s separate from the question of how Russia would be persuaded to relinquish control.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “still maximalist in his demands,” Maxim Tucker, a journalist for the Times newspaper in the U.K., told Times Radio this week. 

“Everything he’s asking for is aimed to undermine Ukraine as a sovereign state.”

Getting the Zaporizhzhia plant generating power for Ukrainians again would help the country in its eventual rebuilding, and given that, Tucker said he can’t see Putin agreeing.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Friday that the agency was encouraged to see the fate of the Zaporizizhia plant “considered in ongoing conversations” relating to the war in Ukraine.

Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said the IAEA stood ready to provide assistance “in the implementation of a future agreement regarding the plant.”

‘A suitcase without a handle’

Oleksandr Kharchenko, a Kyiv-based energy analyst, said the return of the plant to the Ukrainian grid — as Kyiv demands — would be a “game changer” for energy generation not only for Ukraine but also for eastern and central Europe.

The station provided 20 per cent of Ukraine’s power output before the war. Ukraine had started large-scale electricity exports to the European Union just before the invasion, but stopped when Russia hammered its infrastructure with missiles and drones.

Kharchenko said it would take up to one year to restart just a single reactor, and up to four years to get the whole station running because of various problems.

For one, the plant lost access to water from the now-emptied Kakhovka reservoir after its hydroelectric station and dam were blown up in 2023 ahead of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The nuclear facility has since been taking water from a cooler pond, but the water level has been decreasing.

Engineers at Ukraine’s Energy Ministry say the water shortage would mean that only a maximum of two of the plant’s six reactors could be turned back on to generate electricity.

What’s more, they say it would take at least a year to restart even those limited operations because the technical condition of the plant is not known.

A staff member at the plant who fled life under occupation and is now living in Kyiv told Reuters that Ukraine had drafted a detailed plan for the facility’s potential return.

The staff member, who asked not to be named because their relatives were still living under occupation, said it would not be enough for Russia to simply hand over just the nuclear plant.

The Russians would also need to relinquish the adjacent thermal power plant, nearby settlements including the city of Enerhodar and a route by road to the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia, the worker said.

Nonetheless, for some people like pensioner and Zaporizhzhia resident Olha Shyshkyna, the return of the plant one day looks likely as it has had no actual use for the Russian side so far.

“For Russia, our nuclear station is like a suitcase without a handle. After all, it is not operational, and now it’s just a plaything. To us, it’s critically important,” she said.