Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump suggests taking over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants in call with Zelensky
Donald Trump has proposed taking control of Ukrainian power plants, including the largest nuclear facility in Europe, during a call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mr Zelensky hailed the call on Wednesday night as a “positive, very substantive and frank conversation”. It was the first conversation between the two leaders since their infamous public row in the Oval Office of the White House, and came a day after Mr Trump spoke on the phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Mr Zelensky said a “lasting peace” could be agreed this year as he praised Mr Trump’s leadership. He said Mr Trump posed the idea of “an understanding” in which “the United States can recover” the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian control since early in the war.
A White House statement said Mr Trump described “American ownership of those plants [as] the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure”.
Mr Zelensky said that a halt on energy infrastructure attacks, agreed in the Trump-Putin call, could be established quickly, but warned Ukraine will respond in kind if Moscow violated the terms of the limited ceasefire.
