Trump Suggests U.S. Control of Ukraine Nuclear Plants in Zelensky Call

President Donald Trump reportedly suggested to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday that American control of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants could ensure the “best protection” in the future.

Ukraine’s President Zelensky asked President Trump for more missiles during their ceasefire talk phone call on Wednesday, a White House statement on the conversation revealed. The statement was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

While much of what was said to have passed between the men was not novel and has been previously aired, one remarkable standout was Trump’s offer to take ownership of Ukraine’s nuclear plants.

“The two leaders also agreed on a partial ceasefire against energy … President Trump also discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants,” the readout stated, moving Ukraine and Russia closer to the first small steps on a partial ceasefire protecting civilian infrastructure. Trump reportedly added, “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.”

The remarks follow comments by President Trump earlier this week when he said of the then-forthcoming call with Russia’s Putin, that there were ongoing behind-the-scenes talks on “dividing up certain assets” and part of the conversation would be “talking about land. There’s a lot of land, it’s a lot different than it was before the war as you know. We’ll be talking about land, we’ll be talking about power plants because that’s a big question.”

Ukraine has a fleet of 15 Soviet-era nuclear reactors in four nuclear power plants, including Zaporizhzhia, one of the largest in the world, which has six of those reactors producing a nameplate capacity of 5.7 megawatts. The plant has been occupied by Russian forces since Spring 2022 and is mostly in a state of cold shutdown for safety reasons while the war rages on around it.

The proposal to take these plants into U.S. ownership is the latest by the Trump administration to offer Ukraine security guarantees through commerce, ensuring continued American interest in Ukraine’s wellbeing by creating a strong financial interest in its safety. Following the readout on Trump’s comments to Zelensky, U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright assured the U.S. taking ownership of Ukraine’s nuclear fleet was doable, telling Fox News overnight that “There’s no problem, we can do it”.

He said: “If it was helpful to achieve that end, have the US run nuclear power plants in Ukraine… We have immense technical expertise in the United States to run those plants. I don’t think that requires boots on the ground.”

In fact, the United States already has direct experience in nuclear power in Ukraine, with nuclear power giant Westinghouse having supported the country’s power fleet since the Russian invasion in 2022, and has even started building new, American-designed reactors at Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant last year.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal of Westinghouse last year:

Westinghouse Electric, which for two decades struggled to challenge Russia’s dominant position in Ukraine, now makes fuel bundles that are compatible with all of the country’s reactors and is working on a plan that could allow Ukraine to start making some of that fuel itself. Ukraine also plans to build nine Westinghouse-designed reactors.

American technical competence aside, what Russia makes of this development has not yet been expressed publicly, although Kremlin-controlled wires service TASS promoted an article by the left-wing New York Times which suggested such a plan would be “unworkable” on Thursday morning. Russia also has a considerable stake in the nuclear energy field itself, having emerged from the Cold War as the world’s largest supplier of uranium for nuclear power plants.

This was by design, a bid to give Russia’s post-Soviet economy a chance to find a meaningful niche in the world economy, with the United States leading Russia into the ‘Megatons to Megawatts‘ programme, which saw Moscow convert decommissioned nuclear missiles into civil fuel. This cheap Russian nuclear fuel flooded the global market for decades, making Russia the dominant market player and confounding attempts by undercut Western companies to improve their market share.

Russian dominance in uranium has led to an awkward situation in Western Ukraine War sanctions, where Moscow gas and oil is heavily punished while Moscow nuclear is given a free pass.

Meanwhile, Ukraine ceasefire talks go on. Rubio and Waltz said in their statement that technical negotiation work would continue through further meetings between specialists in Saudi Arabia “in the coming days” to “discuss broadening the ceasefire to the Black Sea on the way to a full ceasefire”. They said Trump and Zelensky “instructed their advisors and representatives to carry out this work as quickly as possible” and emphasised that “in further meetings, the teams can agree on all necessary aspects of advancing toward lasting peace and security”.

Work continued to “align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their needs and requests”, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday night, asserting: “we have never been this close to peace and it is only because of President Trump that we are here”.