Nuclear Dealmaker: Trump and Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station

In a late March 2025 phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky, US President Donald Trump floated the idea that the US to be given control over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPPs). The ZNPP, on the Dnipro River with six 1,000 MW reactors, the largest in Europe, was occupied by russian armies during their ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Trump thought apparently that US control would both give the US an important energy asset and contribute to a return to stable operation of the facility.  Professor Paul Josephson, a scholar of the USSR science, technology and history, shared with Mind, whether this scenario is realistic, what Trump's interest is and why he contradicts himself.

Trump’s “nuclear-reactors-for-peace deal” is absurdly complicated on several levels. First, russian troops control the ZNPP in violation of international law. Trump hardly comprehends the complexities of peaceful operation of power plants, let alone the crucial place of nuclear power for Ukrainian energy independence and the nation’s future.

Yet Trump mistakenly believes only he understands the dangers of nuclear war. He said, “Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about today, because you don’t want to hear it. It’s too depressing. So, we want to see if we can denuclearise, and I think that’s very possible. And I can tell you that President putin wanted to do it. He and I wanted to do it. We had a good conversation with China.  They would have been involved, and that would have been an unbelievable thing for the planet.”

This view ignores 70 years of efforts and five major nuclear arms agreements among the major nuclear powers, while downplaying the huge costs of the arms race to which his presidential policies add through the development of new nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.

The Trump Administration and the Atom

Finally, it’s unclear how acquisition of a Ukrainian NPP located in the centre of a war zone would contribute either to regional stability or to US energy policy. Judging by Trump’s call to acquire the Gaza Strip after expelling Palestinians or for Canada and Greenland to give up their resources to become US territories, he has not thought out what it would mean to hang a “Trump” sign on the ZNPP.

First, Trump embraces nineteenth century views of energy and power.  He believes that fossil fuels remain crucial to “a greater America, a dominant America.” He sees a need for increased production from nuclear power plants, having been coached by communications industry billionaires that their computers and servers need more electrical energy. Toward the ends of increased energy production, in several presidential orders in early 2025 Trump declared a national energy emergency and the establishment of a National Energy Dominance Council to achieve these ends.

In 2017 he made the same claims and assertions that his energy policy would “usher in a new American energy policy – one that unlocks million and millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in wealth.”

This is one of a half dozen such efforts over recent decades to rebuild the nuclear energy industry in the US. Including most recently in June 2024 the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act to ensure “clean and emission-free energy for the next 60 to 80 years,” a bill instructing the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to speed licensing of nuclear power plants and facilitate export of US nuclear technology to reclaim advantage in world markets, in part through huge government subsidies.

The industry has been in the doldrums since the Three Mile Island, PA, partial reactor meltdown in March 1979. From 1979 through 1988, 67 nuclear reactor construction projects were canceled. At present there are 93 reactors, down from total of 113, which produce 20% of electricity in US.

On one hand, Trump has gut understanding of the nuclear world: he worries about proliferation and the world’s huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. But, ignoring 70 years of arms control efforts, he thinks he’s alone in these worries. He said, “'Nobody talks about nuclear...the biggest problem we have in the whole world. It's not global warming, it's nuclear warming”.

At times Trump seems to recognize the nuclear risk that russia poses. He continued, “First of all, Ukraine is being obliterated, but let’s not even talk nuclear. Let’s say it wasn’t. Let’s say they were doing better than anticipated. If he (russian President vladimir putin) decided to use his second form of destruction, which is nuclear, that’s the end of that.” Yet if Trump was truly interested in arms control and disarmament, he would not have unilaterally abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, 2015) with Iran to ensure Iran’s compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

An Unlikely Scenario: US Control of ZNPP

President Zelensky insisted for all of these reasons that Ukraine maintain ownership of the ZNPP. Laws mandate that such strategic technologies remain in state control. But he agreed to discuss how the US might invest in, modernise and take formal presence at the plant.

The US presence might deter future russian attacks, but how operation, personnel policy, training, spent fuel handling, and all other issues would be handled remains totally unclear. Operating a Soviet-designed PWR in a war zone while shifting operation, fuel cycle and SNF safety from russian occupiers to the US requires more than a Trumpian suggestion that it would be a good idea.

Should Trump wish to acquire the ZNPP, the US will need to rebuild power lines and substations. The costs of US assistance to ensure ZNPP safety would be astronomical – and they are the direct result of russian attacks.