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President Donald Trump proposed that the US take over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday.
The call between the two leaders came a day after Trump spoke to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as part of the US president’s push to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
“President Trump also discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants,” according to an account of the call from secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
“He said that the United States could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” the summary added, with US ownership offering “the best protection” for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
It was unclear which of Ukraine’s energy assets Trump suggested that the US should control. In recent days, Trump and his team have repeatedly noted the importance of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities.
Asked by the Financial Times which energy assets were mentioned on the call, Zelenskyy said on Wednesday evening that he and Trump only discussed the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which is currently under the control of Russian forces.
Whether US control over the plant could serve as part of a peace plan was a “question of whether we are able to recover it and recover operations”, Zelenskyy added. The Ukrainian president said he was exploring with Washington whether “there could be an understanding that the US could recover [the power plant]”.
Aside from the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s biggest, Ukraine has three facilities in areas of the country still held by Kyiv.
The call comes as Trump’s peacemaking ambitions have showed signs of faltering, despite his repeated claims during last year’s presidential campaign that he would swiftly end the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
A ceasefire deal brokered by the US between Israel and Hamas collapsed earlier this week, while Trump on Tuesday failed to convince Putin to agree to a full ceasefire in Ukraine.
During Wednesday’s call, Zelenskyy agreed to an American proposal to halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.
The deal comes a day after Russia’s president agreed to a 30-day halt to attacks on Ukrainian energy assets. However, Moscow continued to launch strikes on Ukraine on Wednesday morning, hitting the energy supply for one of its national railway lines.
In a post on Truth Social following the call on Wednesday, Trump described his discussion with Zelenskyy as “very good”, adding that peace talks were “very much on track”.
The White House later said the agreement on energy infrastructure strikes was a prelude to further talks in Saudi Arabia “in the coming days” on extending the ceasefire to the Black Sea.
It added that this was a step “on the way to a full ceasefire”.
Zelenskyy described his call with Trump as a “very substantive, and frank conversation”, but also called for a pause on attacks to extend to “other civilian infrastructure”.
The White House said Zelenskyy also asked for the US to supply Patriot missile systems, adding that Trump agreed to work with him to find “what was available, particularly in Europe”.
Zelenskyy and Trump also discussed a prisoner swap that took place earlier on Wednesday, which was intended to build confidence in Trump’s peace bid. Russia and Ukraine said they had swapped 175 prisoners each in what was one of the war’s largest exchanges.
“President Zelenskyy also thanked President Trump for continuing to push humanitarian concerns, including the exchange of POWs,” according to the US account of the call.
