By Reuters
Mar 26, 2025
MOSCOW, March 25 (Reuters) – Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was a Russian facility and transferring control of it to Ukraine or any other country was impossible.
The ministry also said that jointly operating the plant was not admissible as it would be impossible to properly ensure the physical and nuclear safety of the station.
It said Zaporizhzhia region, partly controlled by Russian forces, was one of four in Ukraine that had been annexed by Russia by virtue of referendums staged seven months after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour and a presidential decree had formally made the station Russian property.The separate agreements are the first formal commitments by the warring sides since the inauguration of Donald Trump.
Western nations have dismissed the referendums as shams.
“The return of the station to Russia’s nuclear sector has been a fait accompli for quite some time,” the ministry statement said. “Transferring the Zaporizhzhia plant to the control of Ukraine or another country is impossible.”
Russian forces seized the station early in the invasion and each side has since routinely accused the other of staging attacks that endanger safety at the plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors.
Although the plant now produces no electricity, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has monitors stationed there, as it does at all Ukrainian nuclear power sites.
Ukraine demands the return of the station to its jurisdiction and rejects the 2022 annexation of its territory as illegal.
U.S. President Donald Trump, during a phone conversation this month with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy suggested the United States could help run and possibly own Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.
Although the plant now produces no electricity, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has monitors stationed there, as it does at all Ukrainian nuclear power sites.
Ukraine demands the return of the station to its jurisdiction and rejects the 2022 annexation of its territory as illegal.
U.S. President Donald Trump, during a phone conversation this month with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy suggested the United States could help run and possibly own Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.
This is very depressing to read, because it shows that the trumpkov “negotiations” are pointless and a sham.