In response to the statements made by the President of the Russian Federation on 2 September 2025, the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine underscores the following: Russia employed heavy military force to attack and occupy a civilian nuclear facility – the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). Through force and terror, it has obstructed Ukraine’s legitimate regulatory and operational control over the plant, which is the sovereign property of Ukraine.
The plant is currently operating under an off-design threat scenario – a condition neither envisaged in its design nor foreseen in operational procedures. The consequences of operating under such conditions cannot be properly assessed due to the ongoing military occupation of this nuclear facility.
Since establishing military control over the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the Russian Federation has inflicted systemic and critically dangerous deformations in the technical functioning of the plant. This includes not only the destruction of the main water supply source for reactor cooling following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, but also repeated disconnections of the plant from Ukraine’s power grid, which have already led to nine full blackouts of the facility – a state that directly creates the preconditions for a nuclear accident.
The conditions under which the ZNPP has been kept in a prolonged state of cold shutdown – under the supervision of unauthorized, unidentified personnel and without access for Ukraine’s legitimate operator – are fundamentally incompatible with the basic standards of nuclear safety for a facility of such scale.
In this context, the public statements of the President of the Russian Federation on 2 September 2025 on the introduction of new, undefined “management” and “control” over the plant must be regarded as evidence of Russia’s intent to weaponize the ZNPP as a military instrument in its ongoing war against Ukraine.
These actions are a direct threat to the nuclear safety of the plant and, consequently, to the security of Europe. We call on international partners to respond without delay, particularly within the framework of the September session of the IAEA General Conference, where these threats must be clearly assessed and formally recognized at the international level.
The Ministry of Energy of Ukraine considers any attempts by the Russian Federation to impose new forms of “management” or “control” over ZNPP as a deliberate escalation of the nuclear safety threat.
Ukraine urges the international community to provide a clear assessment of these statements and actions, taking into account their potential impact on the security of the entire European continent.
