Does Trump want to nuclear plants of Ukraine, what Kyiv said? | Russia-Ukraine War News

Kyiv, Ukraine – As he urges Kiev to distribute his nuclear power plants to Washington, the United States President Donald Trump may have forgotten one of the most terrible words that once left Ukraine.

Chernobyl, a synonym for the world's worst nuclear disaster.

The 1986 explosion in the nuclear power plant in the then Soviet Ukraine was hundreds of times stronger than the two atomic bombs that Washington dropped out to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The black explosion is rocket with red, highly irradiated graphite and dust, making parts of the fenced “exclusion zone” around the exclusion plant, unfit for a person for tens of thousands.

If it wasn't for thousands of servicemen and emergency workers who prevented a much larger blow than reactor four, where uranium fuel rods melted into a giant “elephant leg”, the greater part of Eastern Europe would be similar residential.

“I couldn't get up for three months, I barely managed to eat,” said one of the workers, 69-year-old Volodimir Robovik, Al Jazeera told Al Jazeera earlier this month, describing the health effects he suffered.

What did the US and Ukraine say?

During a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski on Wednesday, Trump said the best way for Kiev to protect his four nuclear power plants was to distribute them to the United States.

“The US ownership of these installations can be the best protection for this infrastructure,” Trump said.

Trump added that Washington could be “very useful in managing these power plants with its electricity and useful expertise.”

Zelenski soon explained that he and Trump “talked only about a power plant that is under Russian occupation.”

He was referring to the Plant of the Problems in Southeastern Ukraine, the largest nuclear facility in Europe, which once generated one fifth of Ukraine's electricity.

Russia occupied it in 2022 and all its six reactors were placed in “cold exclusion”, which stops energy production and limits the risk of explosion.

However, Kyiv will not turn the Zaporizzhia plant into Washington.

“If they want to take it from the Russians, invest in it, modernize it, this is another question,” Zelenski told a press conference on Thursday while on a state visit to Norway. “We're not talking about changing property.”

What are Ukrainians afraid of?

Many Ukrainians are wondering if there is any danger of Russian provocation, as an explosion, if and when Ukraine tries to absorb the plant after Trump's proposal.

“Of course, there is such a danger,” said Ihor Romanenko, who serves as the deputy manager of the General Staff of Ukraine of the Armed Forces, “Al Jazee told Al Jazee.

It compares the possibility of the June 2023 blast. destroyed The Nova Kahovka Dam, which once provided a decisive water supply to the plants.

Kiev accused Moscow of blowing up the dam, calling him a “war crime” and “ecocid”.

Romanenko said Trump abuses the terrible military and financial straits of Ukraine to take over the plant – and that Kiev can sue Washington to return them in the future.

“Our memory works well,” he said. “We remember everything that belongs to Ukraine and will fight for what is ours.”

However, a former employee of the Plant of Person Restobel's concern about his concerns about the possibility of Russian provocation.

“I do not think that in this situation (Russians) will resort to deliberate damage to the parts of the station, as the station is the subject of negotiations and caviar,” said a former engineer who escaped from the plant in 2023, but still maintains ties with former colleagues in front of Al Jazera.

“The better its condition, the more the price they will receive when they replace it for something -if they exchange it,” said the engineer, provided for anonymity.

What is the mood at the Zaporizzhia plant?

The engineer said former colleagues who agreed to cooperate with Rosat, the Kremlin -controlled nuclear monopoly, who runs the factory, are worried about Trump's proposal.

But after learning that Washington did not announce the use of its military power to seize the plant, the associates feel enthusiastic.

“There are these mood swings,” the engineer said.

Rosatom has long promised to move them to Russia or to the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, which Russia is being built in southeastern Turkey in the event that Ukraine seizes the platform.

And there is always the risk of negligence on the part of Russian servicemen guarding the plant.

In 2023 Al Jazeera published An exceptional report on Ethnic Chechen Guards in Enerhodar, the city city of plants.

They ignored safety measures by installing fences and machine guns inside the plant and saw it as “a large concrete structure that can hide from behind,” said a former plant official.

If their negligence leads to damage to one of the reactors or fuel storage facilities, an explosion similar to a “dirty” nuclear bomb may occur and to throw away a radioactive cloud over Ukraine and parts of Eastern Europe, another Al Jazeera employee said.

What is the role of the nuclear power plants of Ukraine?

Prior to 2022, the four atomic plants of Ukraine generated almost half of the nation's electricity.

Their role was particularly decisive after Kiev lost access to coal mines in the Southeast Donbass region.

Since 2022, Moscow has been shooting the energy infrastructure of Ukraine and Putin has agreed to stop hitting it only earlier this week.

Shortly after Trump's idea was announced, American Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News that his agency had a “huge technical expertise” to manage them.

“I don't think it requires boots on the ground,” he said.

Wright has experience in engineering and natural gas. He may not be the best expert on how to manage Soviet-era reactors.

They move on the rosat -produced rods, but in 2005 Kiev chose to replace them with a Westinghouse, based in the Pittsburg Nuclear Energy Giant.

Seven years later, Westinghouse damaged the protective envelopes in two reactors of the southern Ukrainian power plant.

Rosotom experts were called to remove the sticks, prompting Putin to announce that they were “solving complex technical problems”.

Westinghouse has processed the sticks and no more incidents are reported.

What are the wider concerns about plants?

International observers are also concerned about Ukraine's aging reactors.

Bankwatch, based in the Prague Ecological Group, called them “zombie reactors” and called on Kyiv to close them.

However, Petro Cotin, the head of Energoatom, a monopoly of Ukraine's nuclear energy, told Al Jazeera in 2021 that the banking “manipulates” and that his agency managed to extend the life of the reactors.

There are also widespread concerns about the suspected corruption in Energoatom against the background of opaque transactions and the purchase of cheap spare parts.

“They receive crazy refusals. This is a team of Moroders,” Olga Kosharna, an expert on nuclear safety, told Al Jazeera in 2021.

What if there is “equipment damage if you have bought the wrong spare part?” she said.