Donald Trump has floated the idea of taking control of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, in a phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
The conversation on Wednesday was described as positive by both sides and was mainly aimed at securing a truce between Ukraine and Russia on aerial attacks against one another’s energy infrastructure.
Mr Zelensky suggested the call had focused on the US takeover of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is under Russian control.
But a statement from the White House, penned by Mr Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz, spoke of the potential American acquisition of multiple stations, including “Ukraine’s electric supply and nuclear power plants”.
The unexpected request follows an ongoing conversation between the two countries to facilitate the US purchase of critical Ukrainian mineral resources, estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Those talks broke down after a public feud between Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky at the White House last month.
Mr Zelensky also said after the call that a halt on energy strikes in the war with Russia could be established quickly but warned Ukraine would respond in kind if Moscow violated the terms of the limited ceasefire. “I understand that until we agree (with Russia), until there is a corresponding document on even a partial ceasefire, I think that everything will fly,” Mr Zelensky said, referring to drones and missiles.
Just hours after Vladimir Putin agreed to immediately order his army to halt strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in a call with Mr Trump on Tuesday, Russian missiles and drones pummeled Ukrainian cities, underscoring the difficulties in securing a ceasefire that will hold.
Russian drones knocked out the electricity for parts of the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk on Tuesday night before Moscow proceeded to fire around 150 missiles and drones at targets across Ukraine overnight, hitting civilian homes and medical facilities.
Moscow accused Ukraine of doing the same after state media reports suggested Ukrainian drones had hit an oil facility in the Russian region of Krasnodar. The Independent could not verify this claim nor the footage provided by state media purporting to show the aftermath of the attack.
The two sides have been exchanging aerial attacks on energy infrastructure for more than a year.
Ukraine started striking deep into mainland Russia at the beginning of 2024 in an attempt to disrupt Moscow’s Russian oil and gas flows and the revenue it derives from sales of energy abroad. Russia, meanwhile, has been bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since October 2022.
The Kremlin’s primary aim, experts say, is to destroy Ukrainian morale and cripple Kyiv’s economy. The rate of strikes often jumps during the winter months as Russia literally tries to force Ukrainians into the cold.
Between March and September last year, Russia launched nine long-range attacks on Ukraine’s electric power system, according to United Nations estimates. “The strikes had reverberating effects causing harm to the civilian population,” the UN wrote.
The largest of those attacks, on 26 August, killed seven people and left dozens more wounded. Russia fired 127 missiles and 109 drones, around half of which were destroyed. More than half of Ukraine was hit, with swathes of the country plunged into blackouts.
