Trump’s Focus on Ukrainian Nuclear Plant Is Partly Linked to Minerals Deal, Officials Say

After months of worry over the possibility of nuclear accidents at the Zaporizhzhia power plant in Ukraine, the reactors were stopped in 2022 and the plant mainly dropped off as a topic of discussion. Until last weekend.

That was when President Trump suddenly said he intended to bring up Ukrainian power plants in his planned call on Tuesday with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to discuss cease-fire proposals. While he did not specifically identify the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which has been under Russian control since early in the war, his administration has strongly hinted at it.

Why did the plant re-emerge as a topic of discussion?

According to a current Ukrainian official and a former one, both of whom have knowledge of talks between the United States and Ukraine, the plant may now be on the table because it is partly tied to negotiations over U.S. access to Ukrainian mineral resources.

The possible carrot for the United States: the critical minerals deal with Ukraine that Mr. Trump wants is contingent on extracting and processing those minerals. And that takes a lot of energy, which the six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, could provide.

Kyiv and Washington have been negotiating for weeks over U.S. access to Ukraine’s untapped deposits of critical minerals, including lithium and titanium, which are crucial for manufacturing modern technologies.

Ukraine has told the United States that processing the minerals would be viable only if the Zaporizhzhia plant was back under its control, according to the two Ukrainians, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks. The currently serving Ukrainian official said the issue came up again last week during a top-level U.S.-Ukraine meeting in Saudi Arabia to discuss a potential cease-fire.