After Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a guarded reaction to US plans for ceasefire talks, his American counterpart Donald Trump has responded, stating he saw "good signals" and that Putin "put out a very promising statement, but it wasn’t complete."
While answering queries from reporters at the start of a meeting at the White House with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Trump also listed out one of the main agendas of the ceasefire talks. It was the ownership of the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
“Who gets that power plant?” Trump said.
"We discussed the issue of Ukrainian land—what territories will be preserved or lost—and all other elements of the final agreement. A large power plant is also involved. Who will get it? Who will get what? It’s not an easy process," Trump noted.
The plant, the largest in Europe and the third-largest in the world by total capacity came under Russian control soon after the invasion in March 2022. However, it has since then stopped generating electricity and has been disconnected from the Ukrainian power grid.
Ukraine has also highlighted the safety of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine following drone strikes in its vicinity. Trump's question about the ownership of the plant hints at how Russia is keeping it as a source of leverage. The plant is a bargaining chip for Moscow as talks get underway.
As long as the plant remains with Russia, it can highlight its safety and vulnerabilities" to prevent any Ukrainian efforts to retake the plant militarily.
Last year, there were reports that Russia could restart at least one of the six reactors at the plant but Aleksey Likhachev, the head of Russia’s state-owned nuclear enterprise, Rosatom, stated that any such plan would be conditional on guarantees of the facility’s safety. Many had then speculated that Putin, who has a penchant for putting up historical gestures, wants to reactivate the plant to celebrate its connection to the Soviet power grid in December 1984.