Russia will obtain licenses to operate, and potentially restart, all units of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine by 2027, plant director Yuri Chernichuk recently told Russian-owned news source Strana Rosatom.
Chernichuk told Strana Rosatom, which is owned by Russian state-owned nuclear energy corporation Rosatom that has occupied Zaporizhzhia since 2022, Rosatom will need to carry out inspections on equipment readiness “before launching.” Zaporizhzhia’s operations must meet Russian regulations and laws by 2028, he said.
“Our units have been idle for a long time,” Chernichuk said. He added that the most realistic option would be to launch Units 2 and 6 first since they are already operating with Russian-made fuel.
All of the reactors were stopped in September 2022, months after Rosatom first took over in March. The plant still provides 20% of the country’s electricity and produces six gigawatts of power.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s nuclear powerplant operator Energoatom, alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have maintained that the Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia must end and the plant must return to Ukrainian control. Petro Kotin, chief executive of Energoatom, said in an interview with the Guardian that it was unsafe to restart the reactors and there were “major problems” to overcome before the reactors could safely start generating power again.
Energotom has also said, along with environmentalist groups, that Rosatom’s “illegal plans” to restart the reactors is a violation of nuclear and radiation standards.
“It is impossible for Rosatom to meet IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] nuclear safety guidelines in seeking to restart ZNPP,” Jan Vande Putte, a nuclear expert at environmentalist group Greenpeace Ukraine, said in a February statement. “We have called on the Director General to make this explicitly clear to Rosatom and Russian government representatives in his upcoming meetings. The IAEA must stop signaling to the Russian government that there is any legitimate pathway for their restart of reactors at Zaporizhzhia.”
Rafael Grossi, nuclear watchdog IAEA’s Director General, last made a statement April 3 on how his team, present at the plant since late 2022, was monitoring the military activities surrounding the plant. He last spoke of ownership and potential restart activities in March, where he said IAEA would “stand ready” to support the plant whatever agreement is reached, so long as there were “developments on restraint around energy infrastructure.”
“We all wish for this devastating war to end as soon as possible,” Grossi said.
Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. have all publicly asserted recently over which country should own Zaporizhzhia. Zelenskyy said U.S. President Donald Trump expressed interest in owning the coveted plant, and Zelenskyy “told him that if it is not Ukrainian, it will not work for anyone. This is illegal.”
Zelenskyy said if Americans are thinking of a “way out” and “want to take it away from the Russians and modernize it,” then this is “a different issue, an open issue… we can talk about it.”
