SIMFEROPOL, June 21. /TASS/. Authorities in the liberated areas of the Zaporozhye Region expect its nuclear power plant in Energodar to be transferred to Russia sooner or later, a senior local official told TASS on Tuesday.
"The nuclear power plant will be placed under Russian control, but the process will be as meticulous as possible, so that we don’t risk any provocation from [Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s] agents of influence at Ukraine’s Energoatom or Ukrenergo. <…> The logic and irreversibility of the process dictates to us that the Zaporozhye NPP will sooner or later be transferred to Russia’s ownership," said Vladimir Rogov, a member of the chief council of the civil-military administration of the Zaporozhye Region.
He said the nuclear facility was currently guarded by Russian troops, and [Ukraine’s] national guard who went over to Moscow’s side continued their duty there, too. The Russian Federation remains committed to working with the International Atomic Energy Agency, so every effort is being coordinated with this global organization, Rogov emphasized.
The Zaporozhye nuclear power plant with a capacity of about 6,000 MW, Europe’s largest, generated a quarter of all energy in Ukraine. It was taken under Russian control in March 2022.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said earlier that the Zaporozhye NPP could supply power to Ukraine, if the ex-Soviet nation was ready to pay for it. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said at a Board of Governors meeting on June 6 that the agency was working to dispatch an expert mission there.