It is a new lever that could be activated in the search for a result in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. During a call with Volodymyr Zelensky, Donald Trump suggested that the United States take “possession” of Ukrainian electric power plants, saying that “it is the best protection and the best possible support.”
During the same telephone conversation, the Ukrainian president said he was ready to suspend attacks against civil and energy infrastructure in Russia, after a commitment made by Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to temporarily save energy sites.
Volodymyr Zelensky also specified that the conversation had only focused on “an energy plant, which is under Russian occupation”, that is, Zaporijia’s great nuclear site in southeast Ukraine. Since the Russian invasion more than three years ago, the five nuclear centrals in the country or its surroundings have been regularly attacked by Moscow attacks.
The fear of a bis chernobyl since the beginning of the conflict
From the first weeks of the conflict, the Russian soldiers significantly occupied the site of the Chernobyl Energy Station, in northern Ukraine, nutritional the fears of radioactive leaks for 35 years after the worst nuclear accident in history. The Russian troops withdrew ending at the end of March 2022 after the failure of their assault against the Ukrainian capital kyiv, which is less than one hundred kilometers when the crow fly from Chernobyl.
Since 2016, an ARK in charge in 2019 after years of work financed by the international community, covered the original sarcophagus built by the Soviets to cover the number 4 reactor, whose heart had exploded in April 1986, as well as its remains.
In mid -February, Volodymyr Zelensky had accused Russia of having damaged an explosive drone, the confinement ark of the resistant nuclear shelf was observed, without an increase in radiation. The Ukrainian president joined at this point with the head of the European diplomacy Kaja Kallas, saw him as a proof that Vladimir Putin “does not want peace.”
The largest European nuclear site
Closer to the Russian border in southeast Ukraine, the Zaporijjia energy plant was also captured by Russia since the first weeks of the invasion. Since then, the safety of the largest nuclear site in Europe with six reactors is precarious, which increases the fears of a potential disaster. Since September 2022, UN experts have been based on the site to monitor the safety and stability of the facilities, the equipment that is executed regularly.
The Russian army has intensified in recent months its attacks to the south of Ukraine and multiplied its attacks on Zaporijjia, a city that had 700,000 inhabitants before the war. Two Russian attacks, on December 6 and 10, 2024, made 10 and 11 dead there respectively, and more than 40 injured. The attacks on this region have intensified for several months. Since November, Ukraine fears an offensive for this city, the homonymous capital of the region, which is about 35 kilometers while the crow flies from the Russian positions and 50 kilometers of the nuclear energy plant of the same name.
In early January, Russian air bombing in the city left at least 13 dead. This strike took place while the Russian army continued its progress in the east of the country, and the clashes continued in the Russian region of Koursk, whose Ukrainian forces occupied several hundred square kilometers.
A month later, Russia and Ukraine had mutually accused attacks that had prevented the rotation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (AIEA) present at the central site, an incident for the second time in a week. The inspectors spend about five weeks there before being replaced according to a complex procedure that involves crossing the front line under the supervision of Russian and Ukrainian armies.
Ukrainian mobilization in pain
The other three Ukrainian nuclear centrals are much less directed by the Russian attacks, especially that of Khmelnitski located all west of the country and where two reactors are being built to add the two existing ones. However, these are not completely released areas.
In mid -September 2022, the Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom had accused Russia of having bombarded the site of the pivdenonoukraïnskraïnskraïnskraïskrais, located in the south of the country, once again reviving the fear of a nuclear incident. More recently, at the beginning of February, a missile strike killed a man and made a person injured in Pivdené, a port city in the neighboring region of Odessa. A few days before, there had been an explosion in a military recruitment office in the city of Rivné and had killed a person and was six injured. Located in the northwest of the country, this city houses four functional nuclear reactors.
The kyiv army, which lacks soldiers and equipment against Russian forces, struggles to recruit new troops due in particular to reluctance within the population, exhausted after three years of very mortal fighting. At the end of October, Ukraine announced that he planned to mobilize 160,000 people to reappear his army during a wave of mobilization organized in the next three months. But mobilization is a stormy theme: the registration system is considered unfair by many Ukrainians and has been in the heart of many corruption scandals.
Source: BFM TV
