This concern is one of 20 issues outlined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a draft peace agreement.
Here are some key points regarding the facility:
WHAT ROLE MAY THE U.S. PLAY?
Russia assumed control of the plant in March 2022, subsequently announcing intentions to integrate it into its power grid. While most nations recognize its ownership as belonging to Ukraine, Russia asserts the plant is Russian, operated by a unit of its state-owned Rosatom nuclear corporation.
At the end of December, Zelenskiy noted that the U.S. had suggested a joint trilateral management structure for the nuclear power plant, with an American overseeing operations.
The proposal from Ukraine offers for joint Ukrainian-American utilization of the facility, granting the U.S. authority over 50% of the energy generated.
According to the Kommersant newspaper, Russia is also considering a partnership for Russian-U.S. operation of the plant.
WHAT IS ITS CURRENT STATUS?
Situated in Enerhodar near the Dnipro River and the Kakhovka Reservoir, the plant lies 550 km (342 miles) southeast of Kyiv.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant consists of six reactors, all designed during the Soviet era, with the most recent becoming operational in the mid-1990s post-Soviet Union collapse. It has a total capacity of 5.7 gigawatts, as reported by an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) database.
Four of these reactors have transitioned away from Russian nuclear fuel, opting instead for fuel sourced from Westinghouse, a U.S. nuclear equipment supplier.
Following Russia’s takeover, five of the six reactors were shut down, with the final reactor halting electricity production in September 2022. Rosatom indicated in 2025 that it was prepared to return the U.S. fuel to the United States.
The plant’s Russian management claims that all six reactors are currently in a “cold shutdown” state.
Both sides, Russia and Ukraine, have accused one another of striking the nuclear facility and damaging its power lines.
The plant’s operations rely on electricity supplied from Ukraine, which has been disrupted at least eleven times over the past four years due to power line breaks, necessitating the use of emergency diesel generators.
These emergency generators on-site are capable of providing electricity sufficient to keep the reactors cool if external power is lost.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated that conducting warfare near a nuclear facility places nuclear safety and security in a perpetual state of risk.
WHY DOES RUSSIA WANT ZAPORIZHZHIA PLANT?
Russia is preparing to restart operations at the plant, though it insists that this would depend on the surrounding conditions. Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev has not dismissed the possibility of supplying electricity generated there to various regions of Ukraine.
Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Research Centre in Kyiv, suggested that Moscow aims to utilize the plant to mitigate a significant energy shortfall in southern Russia.
“This is why they are fighting so fiercely for control of this station,” he remarked.
In December 2025, Russia’s Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision granted a license for the operation of reactor No. 1, marking a crucial step towards its reactivation.
Ukraine’s energy ministry labeled this move as illegal and reckless, raising the risk of a nuclear incident.
WHY DOES UKRAINE NEED THE PLANT?
For months, Russia has been intensifying its assaults on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, resulting in blackouts across various regions during winter.
Recently, Russia has escalated both the scale and intensity of its attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector, leading to widespread power outages.
Analysts estimate that Ukraine faces a generation capacity shortfall of approximately 4 gigawatts, equivalent to four Zaporizhzhia reactors.
Kharchenko stated that it would take Ukraine five to seven years to develop the necessary generating capacity to replace the lost output from the Zaporizhzhia facility.
He noted that should Kyiv regain control of the plant, it would require at least two to three years to assess its condition, followed by another three years to restore the equipment and resume full operations.
Both Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, and Kharchenko indicated that the actual status of the nuclear power plant is currently unknown.
WHAT ABOUT COOLING FUEL AT THE PLANT?
Long-term, there is a persistent issue regarding insufficient water resources for cooling the reactors following the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in 2023, which severely impacted the reservoir supplying water to the plant.
Besides the reactors, there are spent fuel pools at each site that cool down used nuclear fuel. A lack of water supply to these pools could lead to evaporation and rising temperatures, posing a fire risk.
An emission of hydrogen from a spent fuel pool led to an explosion during Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Energoatom reported that the level of water in the cooling pond at Zaporizhzhia has decreased by over 15%, or 3 meters, since the dam’s destruction, and this decline continues.
Ukrainian officials have previously indicated that the remaining water reserves may only suffice to operate one or possibly two nuclear reactors.
(Additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa, Olena Harmash, and Felix Hoske; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
