The fate of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been a concern since Moscow\u2019s forces stormed the facility in March 2022. <\/p>\n
The UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog has repeatedly warned about the security dangers facing the plant \u2013 the largest nuclear power station in Europe \u2013 which sits on the front line of Russia\u2019s invasion. <\/p>\n
Now, the Zaporizhzhia plant is expected to be part of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Trump administration officials said this week. <\/p>\n
The White House press secretary on Monday falsely asserted that the occupied nuclear power plant is \u201con the border,\u201d given that its location in the city of Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia, is almost 200 miles from Ukraine\u2019s internationally recognized border. Its position on the Dnipro River is, however, right on the front line on the Russian-controlled side of Zaporizhzhia. <\/p>\n
Before Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant supplied roughly 20% of Ukraine\u2019s energy, with six reactors. <\/p>\n
But the plant is now disconnected from the grid and has suffered some damage amid drone strikes and constant shelling. All six reactors are now in shutdown and there are concerns over the plant\u2019s ongoing maintenance, as explosions continue to hit nearby, according to the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team on the ground. <\/p>\n
Ukrainian officials have previously accused Russia of endangering the nuclear facility and surrounding population, while Moscow has accused Ukraine of instigating attacks on the plant. Ukraine has also previously raised concerns that Russia could try to connect the plant to its own power grid. <\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists in Kyiv last Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the plant \u201cis a problem for the Russians.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIts existence is impossible without Ukraine. We need money and specialists to restore it. And time too, it will take several years,\u201d Zelensky said. \u201cThis is also a problem for us because it is our plant. Lost money, lost opportunities.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI am sure that they (Russia) will make political, public statements that the station will soon be operational and will supply electricity to the territories controlled by the Russians. It will not happen quickly,\u201d Zelensky added. \u201cAnd the (UN nuclear watchdog) IAEA will be under constant political pressure because the IAEA cannot allow them to do this.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trump said on Sunday that negotiators had already pinpointed certain topics up for discussion in his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including \u201cdividing up certain assets\u201d and saying: \u201cWe will be talking about land, we\u2019ll be talking about power plants.\u201d <\/p>\n
Asked about Trump\u2019s comment on power plants, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday: \u201cThere\u2019s a power plant that is on the border of Russia and Ukraine that was up for discussion with the Ukrainians, and he will address it in his call with Putin,\u201d specifying that she was talking about the nuclear plant. <\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t get ahead of those negotiations, but I can say we are on the 10th yard line of peace, and we\u2019ve never been closer to a peace deal than we are in this moment, and the president, as you know, is determined to get one done,\u201d Leavitt also said. <\/p>\n
Zaporizhzhia is one of the four regions illegally annexed by Russia in 2022. The Kremlin annexed the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia following so-called referendums in the regions that were dismissed as \u201cshams\u201d by Ukraine and Western nations. Russia had previously annexed Crimea in 2014. <\/p>\n
Putin has continued to make maximalist demands to control all of those regions, even though Ukraine still holds significant amounts of territory in Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. <\/p>\n
The Kremlin said last month that the four occupied and annexed regions are \u201can integral part of Russia\u201d and \u201cnon-negotiable.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The fate of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been a concern since Moscow\u2019s forces stormed the facility in March 2022. The UN\u2019s nuclear watchdog has repeatedly warned about the security dangers facing the plant \u2013 the largest nuclear power station in Europe \u2013 which sits on the front line of Russia\u2019s invasion. Now, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10811,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}